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The Giver of Stars by Jojo Moyes

 

**SPOILERS BE HERE**

First preface: This was an audio book and never have a felt a book has suffered more from being listened to rather than read than this one. The narrator was fine; my attention just wanders during audio books, so I may not have given the book the attention it deserves. 

Second preface: I like Jojo Moyes! I consistently rate her books as 3+ and would happily reread them, but not this one. Never this one. I feel like I'm crazy because this has a 4.28 on Goodreads but I borderline hated it. 

Guess who my favorite character was in this book? You're probably thinking Alice or Margery or Beth. Nope. It was Bennett. And therein lies the problem with this book! Everyone was so boring. They all acted exactly as expected and there was little to no growth—good vs evil caricatures were rampant, and the only person who wasn't a complete caricature was Bennett. He at least gave the librarians a tip-off about McCullough's daughters. He at least had some depth, even if his depth was just possibly cheating on his wife and maybe feeling some remorse about it (but I don't really know because there's no real depth to the story), and sometimes going against his overbearing father. Are we supposed to think Bennett is gay? Or is he just very uneducated about marital relations? That's why he's my favorite—I still have questions about him.

Characters aside, the story itself was pretty boring. This was my first time hearing about packhorse librarians, and it could have been so interesting just following them around (well...not the characters in this book), hearing about locals threatening them or their hard slogs through the mountains. I guess we did hear some of that, but it wasn't presented in a compelling enough manner. This book had such a good premise, though, which is why I'm so mad that I didn't like it! Tell me more about Alice trying to fit in instead of her just magically doing it one day, and struggling through her marriage but ultimately making it work (which would have been far more interesting than her just stumbling into the arms of another man). I'd have been perfectly happy hearing more about Sophia and her brother: how they're handling life after his accident, the work she did in the city (Louisville or Lexington? I can't remember), the racist attacks against her. But instead I had to listen to a pretty dull murder story that took forever to get to (I completely forgot who Clem McCullough was) and some mine drama that never really seemed to matter; it was just there to make Mr. Van Cleve more of a dastardly villain. Have it as the setting—that's fine—but there really didn't need to be anything more about it.

And then there was the ending. I really don't like when authors tie up everything so neatly. (I also don't like when the ending is super vague, but there's a happy middle ground most books fall into.) I don't need to know how everyone lived happily ever after; it's unrealistic and unnecessary. Everyone got what they wanted. Hooray. I'd prefer some mystery so I can imagine that Bennett married Peggy and they had seven children because he was basically forced into his marriage with Alice by his father and never loved her and nothing else. I don't care about anyone else so don't want to imagine their endings, but I also don't want to be force-fed drivel about Izzy becoming a famous singer and flirting with Tex Lafayette. 

The end. In writing this, I convinced myself that I actually do hate this book and it has no real redeeming qualities. 

Completed: 4 January 2021
Rating: 1/5
Recommend: Unequivocally do not recommend
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