Bookworm by Robin Yeatman (Bibliolifestyle Book Tour)

 

Thank you, Partner @bibliolifestyle @williammorrowbooks for the review copy of this book.

Do you daydream?  I know I do.  Victoria daydreams constantly and likes to imagine the lives of the people around her.  She is unhappily married to Eric and also likes to day dream about his demise so she can escape her marriage.   She also starts to daydream about a cute fellow reader that she has met at a coffee shop As she starts to feel more and more trapped in her marriage, her daydreams start to blend with reality.  Will Victoria get her happily ever after?

Bookworm is a tale of an unreliable narrator where it’s hard to tell at times what is real and what is imagined.  It reminded me of a blend of You by Caroline Kepnes and My Cousin Rachel by Daphne Du Maurier.  I finished the book on Saturday and I am still pondering about the ending and what really happened. 

I loved all of the literary references in the novel.  She talked about a lot of different books including Patricia Highsmith.  This seemed like a Patricia Highsmith novel combined with something else such as the short story of The Secret Life of Walter Mitty by James Thurber.  My favorite English teacher just passed away yesterday and she loved James Thurber which had me thinking about Walter Mitty and how he daydreamed his life away.  Victoria is a modern day Walter Mitty, but her daydreams take a darker turn and she is not usually the star.

I didn’t really like the character of Victoria at all, but I did think the story was unique and interesting.  This is the type of novel to pick up when you are looking for something new.

This book was published on February 14th.

BOOK SYNOPSIS FROM THE PUBLISHER: 

A wickedly funny debut novel—a black comedy with a generous heart that explores the power of imagination and reading—about a woman who tries to use fiction to find her way to happiness.

Victoria is unhappily married to an ambitious and controlling lawyer consumed with his career. Burdened with overbearing in-laws, a boring dead-end job she can’t seem to leave, and a best friend who doesn’t seem to understand her, Victoria finds solace from the daily grind in her beloved books and the stories she makes up in her head. One day, in a favorite café, she notices an attractive man reading the same talked-about bestselling novel that she is reading. A woman yearning for her own happy ending, Victoria is sure it’s fate. The handsome book lover must be her soul mate.

There’s only one small problem. Victoria is already married. Frustrated, and desperate to change her life, Victoria retreats to the dark places in her mind and thinks back to all the stories she’s ever read in hopes of finding a solution. She begins to fantasize about nocturnal trysts with café man, and imaginative ways (poisoned pickles were an inspired choice in Jane Smiley’s A Thousand Acres) of getting rid of the dread husband. 

It’s all just harmless fantasy born of Victoria’s fevered imagination and her books—until, one night, fiction and reality blur and suddenly it seems Victoria is about to get everything she’s wished for . . . .