The Banned Bookshop of Maggie Banks by Shauna Robinson: Book Review

The Banned Bookshop of Maggie Banks features a woman who agrees to manage her friend’s struggling bookshop in a town with a penchant for historical fiction.

Acknowledgments:

Thank you to my local library for allowing me to borrow this audiobook.

[book-info]

From The Publisher:

Who decides which stories are worth telling?

Maggie Banks’s life is a bit of a mess. After losing a job and moving back home with her parents, she’s desperate for a new Life Plan. So when her best friend asks for help running her struggling bookstore in the quaint town of Bells River, Maggie jumps on the opportunity. She doesn’t even like books, per se, but anything’s better than obsessively checking job boards from her childhood bedroom.

It turns out Maggie’s not prepared for small-town life. More specifically, the strict rules enforced by the local historical society: the bookstore is only allowed to sell “classics”. But with a town full of people looking for fresh stories, Maggie knows she’ll have to get creative to keep the store afloat.

And so begins Maggie’s underground book club: fun, goofy, and totally against the rules. Catering to the stories folks actually want to read and making fun of the stuffy “classics”, Maggie falls in love with books and realizes the power stories have to build community. But with a historical society itching to catch her and shut her down for good, and a budding relationship with an adorably strait-laced inspector weighing on her conscience, everything starts to fall apart. And just as Maggie feels herself becoming a part of the community, she unearths a town secret that could ruin everything. She’ll have to figure out what’s more important: the books that formed a small town’s history, or the stories poised to change it all.

My Thoughts:

Maggie Banks is a woman whose life is stuck when she receives a request from a friend requesting Maggie run her bookshop while she is on maternity leave. This means leaving her parent’s home and her city to live in Bell River.

Bell River is very much run by a local historian who is involved with many of the town’s businesses. The town’s big tourist draw is a late author with ties to Bell River. Much to Maggie’s surprise, the bookstore is unable to sell any books written in this century.

This doesn’t sit right with Maggie who founds an underground bookshop and book group to sell more current books. It’s too bad she can’t share this with Malcolm, her rule-following romantic interest.

While I appreciated the premise of this book and, it felt a little too long for me. The characters were not particularly interesting to me. The story is slow-moving and I began to lose interest halfway through the book. Luckily the book engaged me again near the end of the book and the ending was satisfying.

I listened to the audiobook version of The Banned Bookshop of Maggie Banks which was narrated by Imani Jade Powers. I enjoyed her performance which was enthusiastic and expressive. I highly recommend the audiobook version to those that appreciate this format.

I recommend this book to those that enjoy slow build women’s fiction.