Gigi, Listening by Chantel Guertin: Book Review

Gigi, Listening is an engaging story of a woman who travels to the U.K. in the hopes of finding her true love. She gains a lot more along the way.

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Acknowledgments:

I received a DRC of this book from the publisher but the thoughts and opinions expressed here are my own.

From The Publisher:

Gigi Rutherford loves love stories. She reads them, she sells them at her romance bookstore, and she could spend hours imagining the meet-cutes of every couple she encounters. but when it comes to her own love interests, Gigi is out of stock. Instead of enduring bad date after bad date, these days she’d rather curl up with hr favorite audiobook and the only man who makes her heart skip a beat: Zane Wilkenson, the smooth-voiced narrator Gigi is convinced is her soulmate. 

Then, she’s presented with the chance of a lifetime: a ten-day bus tour through the English countryside, an ocean away from her bookstore—all in the presence of Zane, in person, as he leads the tour. But when Gigi arrives at the bus terminal in London, Zane is nowhere to be found. Until he shows up, she’s stuck with an eclectic group of fellow travellers: recently widowed and chatty Charlotte; trivia-obsessed Francis; Jenny, a true-crime-makeup YouTuber documenting every detail for her subscribers; and Sindhi and Roshi, a long-married couple who can’t stop bickering. Then there’s the brooding bus driver, Taj, who Gigi, finds infuriating yet also incredibly alluring…

With heart and charm, warmth and humor, Chantel Guertin explores the meaning of love and family—and how, sometimes, the journey to yourself is where you’ll find everything you’ve been searching for.

My Thoughts:

If you’re looking for an escape read this spring look no further! This book will take you on a whirlwind tour of England complete with an eclectic cast of characters. Having been on a coach tour of this kind, I found it completely relatable. The characters are well-developed and the story flowed well.

Gigi Rutherford loves romance novels. She loves them so much that she’s turned the bookshop she inherited after her parents’ untimely death into a romance-only bookstore. The very bookstore where her parents met and fell in love more than 30 years ago. She enjoys routine including listening to the audiobook version of a book her parents were both reading when they met. The narrator’s voice is romantic and she dreams about what he is like in person. On her thirtieth birthday, her friends buy her a trip to England to take a tour hosted by this narrator, Zane.

Things don’t always go according to plan and Gigi learns that Zane won’t be starting the tour with them but will try and catch up. Trying to make the best of the trip, she becomes friends with several of the other passengers who each have their own backstory. Much to Gigi’s delight, Zane appears just when she least expects it.

Without giving anything away, Gigi finds romance along this ten-day journey. But this trip is so much more for her. Time and distance from her daily routine allow her to reflect on her life and let go of the past. It is only then that she finds what she’s been missing.

I recommend this book to those readers who enjoy romantic comedies or women’s fiction.

What I Liked:

• The well-developed and interesting characters
• The sense of adventure during the tour of England
• The romance that develops along the way

Other Books I’ve Reviewed by Chantel Guertin:

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