You may or may not have heard of the Life’s Library bookclub, and if you have, you’re probably a nerdfighter. If you don’t know what either of those things is, don’t worry about it. Or google it. I don’t feel like being overly condescending and explainy right now.

Suffice it to say that it is an online book club run, in part, by one of my favourite online creators—well, one of my favourite people of all time, probably, but that’s a tangent for another time, perhaps—where, if you subscribed for the physical subscription, you pay $25 USD every 6 weeks and receive a new book selected by John Green and Rosianna Halse Rojas, as well as some other neat goodies. There are cheaper subscriptions, and even a free public Discord channel if you can’t afford the sub, but want to take the books out of your library and take part for free. But I wanted the shiny extras and the brand new books… so obviously I’m paying my $25 USD every month and a half. Besides, I always want to read the books John suggests, and I love listening to him talk—his voice is just so soothing—and each book also comes with a podcast of John and Rosianna discussing the chosen book (Rosianna also has a lovely British voice and intelligent things to say).

Anyways, the first book was a YA novel from 1998 (that’s one cool thing about the book club: the books aren’t brand new, they actually have to be at least 1 year old, and can be from any genre. I guess that’s 2 cool things. Sorry, I told you I ramble right in the blog title.) by Jacqueline Woodson called If You Come Softly. I had personally never read or heard about this book, but it was quite short and the coverart of my edition was pretty cheesy looking (it’s actually the one pictured in their IG post); this was not the type of book I would have picked up for myself. But really, isn’t that the best reason to be apart of this club?

I don’t want to spoil the story for anyone who wants to read it, so I won’t try to summarize the book myself, because I can be incredibly wordy (obviously), so I will drop a link to the GoodReads summary here, and go on to talk about my impressions.

I did like this book. The characters are fairly well developed for such a short novel, and they are impressively different, with completely different voices, which not all authors are particularly good at. It was very interesting to get a glimpse into the lives of these two very different characters, their families and thoughts (since they are both narrating characters in alternating chapters). It was also a surprisingly believable take on love-at-first-sight, which, in my opinion, is completely bullshit as an actual thing in real life. But this is a fictional novel, so maybe it’s just easier to believe it in this setting versus in real life.

I do wish there had been more time in the novel, though, for more plot and even more character development. I would admit that we were enough into the story for the ending to feel abrupt, and perhaps that was the point. )If you have read this, or if you do read it, that statement will likely make more sense, but again, I don’t want to specifically spoil anything.) But I love a long book. Almost all of my favourites are over 300 pages, or long books that are part of even longer series, like A Song of Ice and Fire, Lord of the Rings, Harry Potter. Which isn’t to say that I can’t appreciate a shorter novel. Some examples that have made a huge impact in a short page count include The Great Gatsy and The Realm of Possibility, and I guess my main complaint here is that this novel didn’t have the same hard-hitting impact that most of my favourite novels have on me. It wasn’t poetic or beautiful and lyrical in its language. It didn’t give me time to be emotionally invested. It was a good story, for sure, and I think if you have any interest, you should read it, but it won’t be an enduring favourite for me.

All that said, though, I’m still happy to have read the book and very much looking forward to the next book that John and Rosianna have selected, which has been announced to be A Field Guide to Getting Lost by Rebecca Solnit. Check back in a month or so to see how that one goes.

For now, thanks so much for reading. Let me know if you’ve read this, if you’re part of the Life’s Library club, or just generally if you have any thoughts.

What books are you guys reading right now? What’s your favourite genre? Would you be interested in seeing what comes in the next Life’s Library package?

Have an awesome day!