09 Oct 2019

Blog Tour: The Library of Lost Things by Laura Taylor Namey – Review and Giveaway!

Posted in Blog Tour, Giveaways |

The Library of Lost Things

Author: Laura Taylor Namey

Publication Date: October 8th, 2019

Publisher: Inkyard Press

Synopsis: From the moment she first learned to read, literary genius Darcy Wells has spent most of her time living in the worlds of her books. There, she can avoid the crushing reality of her mother’s hoarding and pretend her life is simply ordinary. But when a new property manager becomes more active in the upkeep of their apartment complex, the only home Darcy has ever known outside of her books suddenly hangs in the balance.

While Darcy is struggling to survive beneath the weight of her mother’s compulsive shopping, Asher Fleet, a former teen pilot with an unexpectedly shattered future, walks into the bookstore where she works…and straight into her heart. For the first time in her life, Darcy can’t seem to find the right words. Fairy tales are one thing, but real love makes her want to hide inside her carefully constructed ink-and-paper bomb shelter.

Still, after spending her whole life keeping people out, something about Asher makes Darcy want to open up. But securing her own happily-ever-after will mean she’ll need to stop hiding and start living her own truth—even if it’s messy.

I really adore contemporaries, and they can truly often get me out of a rough reading slump or off from a book hangover. The Library of Lost Things did exactly that. I had finished reading a really awesome book and I just couldn’t get myself to pick up another book for a few days because I had loved the previous one so much – but when I started reading this one, I fell in love with the plot and the characters, and because of that, once I started reading I couldn’t stop.

The Library of Lost Things is one of those wonderful books that combine a lot of different aspects to bring to light an amazing book overall. There’s family drama, boy drama, and book drama. All of these elements are introduced into this book and don’t compete with each other for attention, but rather complement each other to create an incredibly fun read.

I love the complex relationships in this book, especially the one between Darcy and her mother. Her mother has a hoarding problem, which causes tension between them, but Darcy loves her mother just the same, and it causes some mixed feelings between the two. To avoid conflict with her mother and to forget about the difficult parts of her life, Darcy turns to books and reading, preferring to get lost in literary worlds rather than the real one she lives in.

I felt like I could relate to Darcy a lot in the book. It can be difficult to deal with a lot of things in real life sometimes, and drifting off into the world of a wonderful book can make the real world we live in fade away for a while, allowing us to not have to worry about dealing with tough aspects of it. Who hasn’t been there before, right? The author really does a great job of incorporating that into her story.

If you are a fan of books about books (yep, it’s awesome!), or if you love contemporaries with a lot of family complexity, this is a fantastic book for you to pick up. I really enjoyed reading this one, and I know I’ll be picking it up again in the future for another read.

Note: I received a copy of this book from the publisher in exchange for an honest review. Thank you!

Laura is a Cuban-American Californian who can be found haunting her favorite coffee shops, drooling over leather jackets, and wishing she was in London or Paris. She lives in San Diego with her husband and two superstar children.

This former teacher writes young adult novels about quirky teens learning to navigate life and love. Her debut, THE LIBRARY OF LOST THINGS will be published 10/08/19 from Inkyard Press/HarperCollins. Her #ownvoices sophomore project, A CUBAN GIRL’S GUIDE TO SWEATERS AND STARS is coming fall 2020 from Atheneum Simon and Schuster.