Alice has moved halfway across the world, to America, with her brand-new husband, looking for a brand-new life. Unfortunately, arriving in Baileyville, Kentucky, turns out not to be quite the adventure she was expecting. Until she gets involved with the travelling library and gets to know Margery O’Hare, another outsider in town. The life she begins to forge for herself, out on the trails and getting to know her fellow librarians, gives Alice a kind of satisfaction she’s never felt before. But when the town turns against the library, will the ties the librarians have forged be enough to save them?
The Giver of Stars is the latest book by Jojo Moyes, author of Me Before You and other novels. Historical fiction, set in the 1930s and based on a real travelling library program initiated by Eleanor Roosevelt, it is a story of self-discovery and female friendships, of standing up for yourself and what you believe, set against the backdrop of rural Kentucky.
Moyes’ writing is lovely, and her descriptions of the rugged trails Alice and the other women take to deliver their books to families living in the mountains were consistently beautiful. I finished this book longing to head out on a mountain ride of my own! Alice’s increasing feelings of frustration, uncertainty and claustrophobia in the house she shares with her husband and father-in-law also play out highly effectively over the course of the plot.
I loved the women of the travelling library—Alice, Margery, Izzy, Beth and Sophia—and the way their relationship developed as the story went on. The way they supported each other, and helped each other to grow, gave the book a huge amount of heart. The characterisation in general I unfortunately thought was weak, with the good characters largely without flaws (apart from a little stubbornness or snark here and there) and the main antagonists just cartoonishly evil with little to no nuance. The character with the most demonstrated potential for really interesting growth and exploration was Bennet, Alice’s husband, and I would have been fascinated to delve more into his motivations and inner conflicts. Sadly, it wasn’t to be, and we were left with a serviceable but ultimately not particularly challenging conflict between the two sides presented in the story.
The balance that was struck between Alice’s home life and her work for the library was pretty good, I thought, although I would have been happy to see it tilt a little further in favour of her experiences delivering books. The early sections in particular, where Alice was finding her feet and getting to know the families on her routes, were some of the highlights of the story for me. That’s not to say I didn’t enjoy the rest of it, to be clear, I absolutely did. I just felt like those were the moments where the story was at its best and brightest, with the rest—as entertaining as it was—being more predictable.
I won’t talk about plot specifics (no spoilers here!) but there was a significant increase in drama as the plot moved along. While I think it might have been more interesting to keep the stakes lower and really dig into the intersecting lives of the travelling librarians and the families they served, Moyes’ handles it deftly enough that it doesn’t feel overblown. I definitely got swept up in the events that unfolded, and I was enormously invested in the fates of the characters.
All in all, The Giver of Stars is an engrossing and genuinely moving story populated by characters you’d find it very difficult not to root for. I got major Jodi Picoult vibes while reading it, and I think if you’ve enjoyed her work then The Giver of Stars is a very safe bet.
This is my Review of the Month for the review collection on LovelyAudiobooks.info
I’ve never read anything by Jojo Moyes but I’ve seen so many people praise her writing style. The character developments and relationships in this book sound great, and I typically like things set in this era too. Sounds like an interesting read x