The Storied Life of A. J. Fikry by Gabrielle Zevin

You might have heard about this book, but I think I was the only bibliophile on the planet who didn’t care for this novel centered around a bookseller and his bookstore in Cape Cod.

A. J. Fikry, the bookseller, has lost his wife, drinks to excess, and is falling apart. The plot introduces two characters — a publisher’s rep who challenges his state of affairs and then an abandoned child, who A. J. Fikry, takes in and eventually adopts – so contrived, I shook my head.

The story then ventures into romantic melodrama and the writing seemed aimed to a young adult reader. By the time I turned the last page, I needed a walk to clear my head from the cutesy schmaltz, and that’s when I dropped my copy off at a little free library for someone else to try.

I never bothered you all with a thumbs down review of The Storied Life of A. J. Fikry but now there’s a Netflix film adaption on Netflix — so I think attention must be paid and a warning must be issued.

The other night I decided maybe, just maybe, the film will be an improvement on the book, and so settled in to give it a try.

All I can say is I will never get back that hour and three-quarters of my life I wasted watching the film (not forgetting the hours spent reading the book) – it was terrible. The bookshop was digitally rendered, the characters were so one-dimensional, they could have been artificially created, and the dialog was even worse than the book.

So fair warning – spend your time elsewhere. So many better books and films out there.

Luckily, I’m reading these two books (yes, I often read two books at once).

They are very different, but both excellent so far.