Amy Meyerson

I’m a sucker for novels about books and bookstores so when I chanced upon this one, I couldn’t resist. Unfortunately, my money was not particularly well-spent.

When she was young, Miranda was close to her only uncle, Billy Brooks, a man who created riddles to send her on scavenger hunts. When Billy and Miranda’s mother had a falling-out, Miranda lost contact with him. Sixteen years later, she receives word that he has died and left her his bookstore, Prospero Books. He also left her a show more literary clue which takes her on one last scavenger hunt; this one leads her to people from Billy’s past and to hidden family secrets.

The plot is so predictable. Early on, Miranda’s mother makes a loaded comment: “’Loving something and being responsible for it are two very different things’” (67). Two pages later, we learn that she was named for a character from The Tempest, the favourite play of her mother’s best friend (69). Who names a daughter after a friend’s favourite drama?! From that point on, I knew what Miranda would learn. This predictability means that the scavenger hunt goes on for much too long. The outcome of the romance plot is also totally foreseeable.

The clues in the form of quotations from and allusions to a variety of literature (The Tempest, Alice’s Adventures in Wonderland, Jane Eyre, The Grapes of Wrath) are obscure and lead to an elaborate, convoluted quest which seems largely unnecessary. Why wouldn’t Billy have written a letter explaining everything?

Characterization is not a strong element in the novel. Miranda is not a likeable character. She is so self-absorbed that she creates unnecessary drama. If people don’t give her what she wants, she lashes out – as if she were a teenager rather than a 28-year-old woman who should be able to take into account other people’s feelings. She is irate when people aren’t open with her, yet she shuts out her boyfriend?
The bookshop is failing and Miranda keeps expressing concern about its future. She supposedly wants to revive it but she takes little constructive action. What she actually does in the shop is unclear and obviously her contribution is minimal since she flits in and out on a whim. She cares more about the scavenger hunt than the bookstore and the effects of its closing on the employees.

Of course, she is not the only self-centred character. Miranda’s mother was jealous and insecure when Billy had a relationship with her best friend? And this same woman doesn’t even go to her brother’s funeral! The minor characters are underdeveloped and remain flat. The bookstore employees, for example, are quirky, but that is all that is really known about them.

Miranda’s questions are answered; the reader figures them out long before she does. There are, however, some things that are mentioned and then dropped. Whatever happened to those emerald earrings if they were so important? What was in the letter that Elijah sent Miranda (96)?

If you enjoy a book whose ending you will know after reading less than 20% of it, pick up this book; otherwise, don’t allow yourself to be lured by its title as I was.

Note: Please check out my reader's blog (https://schatjesshelves.blogspot.com/) and follow me on Twitter (@DCYakabuski). show less

Miranda Brooks spent her childhood in frequent visits to her Uncle Billy's bookshop, Prospero Books, learning a love of reading and literature, and solving the scavenger hunts he set for her. She also spent time wondering if he would show up for expected visits, or be suddenly called away by his real job, as a seismologist responding to major earthquakes all over the world.

Then, when she was twelve, her mother and Billy had a major falling-out, and Billy disappeared from her life. Miranda show more didn't hear from him again for sixteen years. She was by then living on the east coast, in Philadelphia, teaching eighth grade history, and living with her boyfriend, Jay.

Billy has died, and had arranged for a book to be mailed to her. It contains the first clue in the last scavenger hunt he set up for her.

He has also left his bookstore, Prospero's Books, to her. Unfortunately, it's in serious danger of bankruptcy.

Soon Miranda is back in Los Angeles, attending Billy's funeral, and following his clues, as each clue leads her to a person who has both information about Billy, and another clue.

She's also staying with her parents, at least initially. This gets tense, because her mother--who has never been willing to say what she and Billy argued about--is determined to "protect" Miranda from whatever she might learn by looking into Billy's past. Miranda, naturally, doesn't at all like the idea of being "protected" by being kept ignorant.

While this is going on, she's also getting to know the bookstore again, and its current staff, and finding, perhaps, a new "found family."

I was really drawn into the story. Miranda, the staff at Prospero Books, and what she gradually learns about her family's past are absorbing.

Recommended.

I bought this audiobook. show less

Really enjoyed this new author. Hope to read more. Kirkus: A woman inherits her late uncle?s struggling bookstore in Meyerson?s debut novel.Miranda once idolized her uncle Billy�he was charming, adventurous, and always let her pick out any book she wanted from his store, Prospero Books. He planned elaborate scavenger hunts and was full of surprises. But on the night of her 12th birthday, Billy and her mother have an explosive fight. Miranda doesn?t know what happened between them, but she show more loses touch with Billy¥until years later, when she?s a teacher in Philadelphia. Billy is dead, but he left her his bookstore¥and a mysterious book and letter. Determined to figure out what?s going on, Miranda returns to Los Angeles and embarks on her final scavenger hunt, following clues that introduce her to books and people from Billy?s past. No one will tell her why Billy disappeared from her life¥not her mother, her father, or the employees at Prospero Books¥so the scavenger hunt is her only hope to figure out what happened. Miranda quickly finds out that Billy wasn?t just the fun-loving uncle she remembers¥his life was also full of tragedy. As Miranda learns about his history, she must also juggle trying to save Prospero Books and deciding what she wants out of her life. Should she return to teaching and her boyfriend in Philadelphia, or would she rather stay with her family and her bookstore in LA? Miranda?s quest to learn more about her uncle leads to some surprises and plenty of references to literature, with clues hidden in classics like Jane Eyre, Frankenstein, and Bridge to Terabithia. Meyerson writes beautifully, with lush descriptions of LA and believable interactions between characters. Prospero Books is warm, inviting, and populated with lovably quirky employees readers will want to get to know.A lovely look at loss, family, and the comfort found in a good bookstore.Pub Date: June 12, 2018 show less

Authors figured out people like me a long time ago – but really, that wasn’t so hard to do. Just include the word “bookstore” or “bookshop” in your book’s title and feature the image of an old bookstore, book, or stack of books on its dust jacket, and we will practically sprain our wrists snatching your novel off the bookstore or library shelf as soon as we see it. And best of all, we will read it and we will talk about it – a lot.

Which brings us to The Bookshop of show more Yesterdays by Amy Meyerson. This one was first published in mid-2018 but I didn’t stumble upon it until a few days ago when it was released in a paperback edition. Believe me, if I had seen it in 2018, it would have been read in 2018. It was even named one of the Best Books of Summer 2018 by both the Philadelphia Enquirer and the Library Journal, so I’m not sure how I missed it.

On the surface, this one seems to have a lot going for it. It’s about a young Philadelphia teacher who returns to Los Angeles to attend the funeral of an uncle she has not seen since she was a little girl. Sixteen years earlier her uncle had a mysterious falling out with Miranda’s parents, one so severe that she never saw him, or heard her parents speak of him again (they even refused to attend the man’s funeral). Now, Miranda is shocked to learn that upon his death her Uncle Billy left to her the old neighborhood bookstore she has such fond memories of visiting as a child. But why would he do something like that – and more importantly, what is she going to do with the floundering bookstore?

Beginning with the mysterious clue she received in Philadelphia before she learned of her uncle’s death, Miranda is soon involved in a complicated scavenger hunt inside his bookstore. When she was a little girl, Billy always had a bookshop scavenger hunt prepared for Miranda’s amusement whenever she visited Prospero Books, but she is not at all prepared for where this final hunt might lead her. Ready or not, though, Miranda is determined to learn what it is that Billy seems so badly to want to tell her - even after she figures out that each clue in the chain is leading her closer and closer to a truth that could destroy her family and everything she believes about herself.

The Bookshop of Yesterdays, with all of its references to books both classic and modern, is definitely a booklover’s mystery, one that is enjoyable as such. But something about the plot nags at me a bit and makes me wonder if I missed a plot element somewhere along the line that would explain away my doubt. Why did Billy use a scavenger hunt, one that had a relatively high chance of failure or not even being undertaken by Miranda at all, to pass along something of such great importance to her? Why did he not simply write her a detailed letter, including all the necessary references to the people who would fill in the details for her, and attach that to his will? (I know that book, of course, would not have been nearly as much fun as The Bookshop of Yesterdays – so is this just an instance of me not being able quite to reach the level of suspended disbelief that the author is asking me to reach?)

Bottom Line: If you are one of those people I described up above – and you know if you are – grab this one and read it quick. And then come back and tell me what I missed that explains Billy’s willingness to gamble that Miranda would be able, or even want, to solve one last Prospero Books scavenger hunt. show less