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.
There is always a way out of a situation. Might be ugly. Might leave you feeling like the earth had gone and shifted under your feet. But there is always a way around.
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.
Time flew. And each ended the night full and happy with the rare glow that comes from knowing your very being has been understood by somebody else. And that there might just be someone out there who will only ever see the best in you.
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.