The Little Library

De: Kim Fielding

Narrado por: Andrew McFerrin

Elliott Thompson was once a historian with a promising academic future, but his involvement in a scandal meant a lost job, public shame, and a ruined love life. He took shelter in his rural California hometown, where he teaches online classes, hoards books, and despairs of his future.

Simon Odisho has lost a job as well - to a bullet that sidelined his career in law enforcement. While his shattered knee recovers, he rethinks his job prospects and searches for the courage to come out to his close-knit but conservative extended family.

In an attempt to manage his overflowing book collection, Elliott builds a miniature neighborhood library in his front yard. The project puts him in touch with his neighbors - for better and worse - and introduces him to handsome, charming Simon.

While romance blooms quickly between them, Elliott's not willing to live in the closet, and his best career prospects might take him far away. His books have plenty to tell him about history, but they give him no clues about a future with Simon.

©2018 Kim Fielding (P)2018 Kim Fielding

Funny and witty sweet romance

I really enjoyed this book, it was lighthearted and very funny at times, each character is unique and interesting and the narrator managed to capture their uniqueness extremely well. The narration was fantastic!!!
I loved how Simon and Elliott grew into the relationship with the help of their mutual love for books and reading. Elliott is just such an interesting man, and his internal conflicts and book obsession moments were just hilarious!
There was something very soft about the progression of the story, despite some parts that could have been overly dramatic in another author's hands, it never became a melodrama. I really liked it about this book, it pulls you in stealthily and I finished it with a great sense of contentment.

Sweet romance

I absolutely adored this lovely story, and I've listened to it several times. It never fails to leave me with the warm fuzzies.

The narration is fantastic as well. Overall, a very sweet lighthearted romance.

Enjoyable light romance

Flows along pleasantly with minimal obstacles between the professor and the hot ex-cop, save for the hardly unexpected prejudices of his parents from the Middle East. All the action is quite realistically depicted. The appealing concept of the little library is an inventive twist and the author has the academic world down with great accuracy. Good narrator. Perfect bedtime listening.

Another great one from Kim Fielding!

Kim Fielding is a terrific writer, you can trust that any of her stories are always going to be an amazing journey with well-developed characters and a well-planned plot. This is a very gentle love story about two men who’ve had some struggles in their romantic pasts but are still willing to try.

I love the imagery of the little town bonding over books and the idea of book sharing as a community. (I wish things like that would happen!) While e-books are fantastic that is one major down side to the technology – fewer paper books to share. ☹

There wasn’t anything earth shaking in this, but the love between these guys and their personal growth was sweet and easily captivating.

This is the perfect book for people in the mood for something light, sweet and easy.

Highly recommended!

4 of 5 stars


Audio

Andrew McFerrin does a FANTASTIC job with this! He gives everyone a unique and appropriate voice and is wonderful on the non-dialog emotional scenes as well. He absolutely added to the overall experience and was a joy to listen to!

5 of 5 stars

Overall 4.5 of 5 stars

Real people adulting

I really appreciated this book because the two main characters are very real, trying to figure out their lives after each facing a challenge that has derailed them, and doing so with tremendous grace. As they negotiate this new relationship and fall in love, they act like adults. When they are hurting, they talk to each other. In so much romance, there is manufactured drama that could be so easily resolved by a quick conversation or checking in with each other. These guys don’t do that. They act exactly the way you would expect real live humans to act. It was incredibly refreshing. And I just fell in love with each of them.

Thoroughly enjoyed it.

Delightfully heartwarming story and the concept of a "little library" bringing a community together was excellently written.
Well developed MC's with realistic strengths and weaknesses and issues any of us could experience - all expertly narrated by Andrew McFerrin.

I'll be happy to listen to this one again when i'm looking for something light and easy going. :)

Lovely Story

The Little Library is a wonderful contemporary romance. The romance is well written and the character development is excellent. I highly recommend it.

The only book I've ever demoted

Probably like many audiobook listeners, I tend to arrange the files I download into tiers: I have a directory for all the generic books I probably won't read again, another for books that are worth a second or third read, and then a directory for my favorites; books I consider absolute classics. The Little Library originally went into the middle category; I remember being pretty satisfied with my first listen, though I wouldn't have put it into my favorite category, either.

I must not have been paying attention, though, because on a second listen, I had a wildly different opinion and this ended up being the only book (so far) that I've ever "demoted" into the generic directory. What did I find distasteful about it? I'm glad you asked. Let's start with the main character, Elliott. He's annoying. Annoying, condescending, and a know-it-all. Simon, the far more likable secondary character in the romance, finds it endearing. I find it irritating.

Another thing I don't like: there is a scene toward the end (it may actually be an epilogue, or a last chapter) where Simon's cousin asks him to do something (I'll avoid spoilers). The reactions of Simon, Elliott, Simon's mother, and cousin are so unbelievable as human reactions that I can't believe I had forgotten that it happens. It ends the book on a very sour note.

Lastly, there's the semi-antagonist, a homophobic neighbor of Elliott's. Homophobic people exist, unfortunately, but if you're going to put one in your novel, there's a way to do it and a way NOT to do it. This guy falls firmly into the latter category. He's WAY too over-the-top and cartoonishly evil. If you think homophobes like him exist, you should get off twitter and get out and meet actual human beings.

Anyway, I wasn't enamored enough the first time through to leave a good review, but I was definitely annoyed enough the second time through to leave a mediocre one.

PS Don't give someone a dog or any other living creature as a surprise gift. I'm not marking points off for it, because people do dumb things like that--though Simon should know better, honestly--and sometimes it really does work out, but it's a tremendously bad idea in general and just don't do it, please.