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Sep 02, 2018wyenotgo rated this title 4 out of 5 stars
I struggled with the question of where to shelve this one. On the surface, designating it as humor would seem obvious because i found myself laughing uproariously so many times. And it's not really "about books" in the usual sense despite a bookshop being the title and setting. In the end, I was reminded of Paliaccio, collapsing in tears of grief and frustration while putting on his clown face and costume, commanding himself to laugh. Under all that veneer of hilarity and outright nonsense, this is a very dark little tale. Fitzgerald was an enormously gifted writer, able to draw startlingly crisp pictures of her characters in very few brilliantly chosen words -- and send them up mercilessly. She is at her best when focusing on marginalized people inhabiting the outer margins of society. I've never seen the film based on this book; I wonder if it could have done the book justice?