The Bookshop Sisterhood by Michelle Lindo-Rice Published by Harlequin on July 30, 2024
Genres: Fiction / African American & Black / Women, Fiction / Family Life / Marriage & Divorce, Fiction / Friendship, Fiction / Romance / Contemporary
Pages: 400
Format: ARC
Source: NetGalley
“This drama-packed page turner will warm your heart!” —Eliza Knight, USA Today bestselling author of The Mayfair Bookshop
When life rewrites the story, only friendship will see them through.
After years of hard work, four best friends—Celeste, Yasmeen, Toni and Leslie—are finally on the verge of opening the bookstore of their dreams. A place where their community can find solace with an intriguing new read, a comforting beverage and book-loving friends.
But before they can cut the ribbon, their worlds are upended.
Toni receives devastating news just months before her wedding, while Celeste’s struggling marriage threatens to collapse completely. Leslie learns a shocking secret about her family, and a lotto ticket changes Yasmeen’s life—but not for the better.
As the bookstore’s grand opening fast approaches, the four women must lean on each other now more than ever to navigate their grief and uncertainty. And together, they’ll learn that sometimes, even life’s most unexpected plot twists can lead to beautiful new beginnings.
My Review
I want to start this review by thanking Netgalley, Harlequin Trade Publishing, and Michelle Lindo-Rice for gifting me with a digital copy of The Bookshop Sisterhood in return for an honest review. I was completely drawn in by not only the cover of the book but the blurb for the book. Everything points to this book being something that I would gobble up. So, needless to say, when I got approval to read it, I was ecstatic. I mean, seriously, who doesn’t love a book about friendship and books? This story was not what I was expecting, but to be fair, I am not sure what I was expecting. Let me jump into my review, and I will do my best not to include spoilers, but as always, if there are any, I will give you fair warning.
This book had so much going on, and the drama was YIKES a lot. In this story, we are following four friends: Yasmeen, Leslie, Toni, and Celeste. These characters irritated me to no end, which I will get into in a bit. These four women are in their thirties and have been friends for fifteen years. It is their dream to open a bookshop together since they are such big readers. Their book club is what has kept them together throughout the years and during life’s ups and downs. No matter what went on in their lives, they would always meet to discuss the book club pick and catch up on life. I thought that this book would be all for female friendship, with them wanting to open a bookshop and all, but I found their friendship to be somewhat toxic. They often picked one another apart and got in backhanded jabs, all while still being friendly with one another for the most part. Let me break down these characters for you before I go on much further. This section may contain spoilers, so skip the characters section if you do not want to see anything that might contain spoilers. The spoilers will be small and only used to help me make my point about these characters.
Yasmeen lives with her folks and is a college dropout. She dropped out of school because she had such a hard time with the coursework due to a learning disability, which she refuses to be tested for or even acknowledge. She is dating a man who wants to attend culinary school but is trapped in the cycle of hanging with the wrong crowd. He is constantly trying to bum money from Yasmeen, but the problem lies in the fact that she does not have any. Yasmeen and her family are struggling to even keep the lights on in their home, especially since her father has become disabled. Money is always tight for her, and she often relies on her wealthy friends (girls, as she calls them) to help her out. All of these things really made me feel for Yasmeen until she won the lottery, and then her stupidity and choices drove me up the wall. The mistakes she made to me are so in your face, and I could not understand how it was that she couldn’t see them.
Celeste is happily married to her college sweetheart (or maybe high school) and living the dream. They have a lovely home, drive fancy vehicles, have a nice savings account/assets, and both enjoy their jobs. Their lives seem to be going perfectly until one night, fifteen or so months prior, they are victims in a car hijacking. Celeste is held at gunpoint while the two men beat her husband and use racial slurs before leaving to escape the cops. One would think that an experience like this would bring the couple closer together; however, that is not the case because Celeste refuses to go to therapy. Her husband begs her to go and eventually gives her an ultimatum. The thing that got me about Celeste is that she is willing to lose the man that she loves because she does not want to help herself. Even with the urging of her friends, she still refuses to get the help she needs. She suffers from severe Anxiety and PTSD from that night, which is completely understandable, and it makes me feel for her. It really does, but her refusal to get help drove me crazy.
Leslie is a stay-at-home mom to her twelve (or maybe it was ten) year-old daughter while her husband works in pharmaceuticals. Her life appears to be perfect from the outside, with a beautiful home, a talented daughter, and a hard-working husband, but trust me when I say all is not what it seems. Leslie enjoys an orderly life, but when someone she loves falls deathly ill, a secret is revealed that threatens to upend her whole world. The stress Leslie is put under is enough to break a person even before the secret is revealed. I am not going to reveal this secret, but I will say that I think she did a terrible job of handling the situation, and it infuriated me. When a second secret comes to light, it again turns Leslie’s life upside down, but this time, I can say I think she handled part of it really well. This secret is kind of a two-part deal, and for me, the main part of it she handled well, but the delivery part of it not so much.
Toni is a social influencer who has recently become engaged to the man of her dreams. There is only one little problem: he does not know the real Toni, and frankly, neither do her friends. Toni made some very bad choices as a teen, which led to her leaving her home in New York and ending up in Delaware. She made some choices that are not staying in her past but threatening to bring down the life that she now lives. Instead of asking for help from her boyfriend and her long-time friends, she decides it is best to lie to them and try and figure it out on her own. This is not the only secret that Toni has been keeping from her boyfriend; she also recently got some devastating news that will change the future that they want together. I found Toni annoying because she had so many opportunities to share her secrets with her loved ones but refused to do so, allowing them to build up in her mind all the more. Toni always wants to be there for her friends, but when it comes to her and her problems, she does not trust them enough to see and love her despite her past. She simply did not trust them or her boyfriend; she never wanted to give them a chance to get to know her beyond what she presented to them until her past crept in to destroy her and everything she had worked so hard for.
I thought this story was going to be about four friends opening a bookstore together and their day-to-day lives. I did not expect that this story would be about all their drama, lies, and picking at one another. I think that each one of these characters could have a story written just about themselves with the amount of drama each one was carrying. If you love a story filled with drama and secrets, then I think that this story would be right for you. If you are looking for a story about women opening a bookshop, and that is the main focus of the story, then I am afraid that you might be disappointed. Did I enjoy reading this book? I think I did, but for me, it was more of a how stupid can they get kind of a read rather than a rooting for them kind of a read. This is my first book by this author, and I hope to pick more up from her in the future. Readers, have you read anything by this author, and if so, what have you read? Reader, Until Next Time, Happy Reading.
Again, I want to thank Netgalley, Harlequin Trade Publishing, and Michelle Lindo-Rice for gifting me a digital copy of The Bookshop Sisterhood in exchange for an honest review. Everything I have written above is completely my own thoughts and opinions.
Trigger Warnings:
- Gang Member Talk
- Racisms
- Car Hijacking
- Violence/ Being Held At Gun Point
- Divorce
- Gambling Addiction
- Sick Child With Hospital Scenes
- Arrest
- Strained Parent/Child Relationship Due To Life Choices
- Adoption