A.J. Fikry

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

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

Family drama, humor and romance all wrapped up in one heart-warming story.  

The premise: A.J. is a widower who lives alone above his bookstore. He is crotchety and set in his ways, but life has other plans. His bookstore is not doing well financially. A.J.’s prized book is stolen.  He is forced to interact with a new book-seller, Amelia. A child is abandoned in his bookstore.   

As one would expect from a book that I described as heart-warming, A.J. softens and becomes more friendly, experiences love in several forms and touches people’s hearts.  However, while A.J. is the star of the story, there are so many other great characters! I love the friendly cop who develops a love of reading, the drunken “author” who speaks at a bookstore event and the ridiculous womanizing author who happens to be A.J.’s best friend, to name a few.

I read this book for the first time about a year ago and I didn’t care too much for it.  I think I was in the mood for something else and just skimmed through it. Then, my book club chose this as our November/December read and I HAD to re-read it in order to talk about it as I remembered absolutely nothing about it (other than A.J. owned a bookstore).  I am so glad my book club chose this and that I re-read it. It would have been sad if I had gone on thinking this book wasn’t so great, when in reality it was wonderful!