The Bossy Bookworm
Oct 13, 20222 min
ICYMI: I loved being along for the ride with Moyes's five strong women characters as they traveled through the wilds of Kentucky in Depression-era America bearing the magic of books.
In Jojo Moyes's The Giver of Stars, it's Depression-era America, and a call has gone out for librarians who can deliver books for Eleanor Roosevelt's new traveling library.
Alice Wright traveled from England in hopes of adventure in her new married life; Margery is independent and strong-willed; and together with three other women, they make up the Packhorse Librarians of Kentucky.
Plunging into the unforgiving, beautiful, wild land, the women face dangers and surprises in order to bring the written word to hollers and mountaintops.
You may predict the broad strokes of where this story is headed, but Moyes lays out such rich detail of life in the mountains and hollers of Kentucky that it’s fun to just be along for the ride.
The traveling librarians were all irresistible variations on “tough as nails with hearts of gold” characters. I loved their searches for love and their yearning for living a life that was true to themselves (by pushing against the norms of the day).
Do you have any Bossy thoughts about this book?
Jojo Moyes is also the author of Me Before You, One Plus One, The Girl You Left Behind, The Ship of Brides (mentioned in the Greedy Reading List Six Great Stories about Brave Women During World War II), and other novels.
Another book I loved about traveling librarians was The Book Woman of Troublesome Creek.