The Library

Truly heartwarming story about an unlikely friendship between an old lady and a teenage boy.

Tom is a modest teenager who likes to play computer games. His mother is dead and he lives with his alcoholic father in poor conditions. Suddenly Tom discovers the local library and the joy of reading. This takes his life to a totally new direction. Maggie is a pensioner who lives alone in an out-of-town cottage with many animals to look after. For Maggie, the library is an important place to socialize and to borrow books for reading.

The library is the very place where these two meet. Fighting for the library’s survival unites them and makes them become good friends. Tom may seem like a typical teenager who is playing computer games, but actually he is a sensitive young man who likes romance novels. Maggie appears to be an ordinary pensioner, but she’s a former hippie who does yoga, martial arts and drives a tractor. These seemingly different people have a lot in common – they both know what it means to lose someone you love and they both like books and animals.

This book is a nice change from love stories and crime thrillers. It is a story about friendship, but also about family relations, trust issues, grief, alcoholism, farm life, libraries and so much more.

The chapters alternate between Tom’s and Maggie’s point of view. Both characters felt credible and interesting, although part of me felt a bit doubtful that a teenage boy would really read romance novels. Then again, you shouldn’t judge a book by its cover. I recommend this book to anyone who likes uplifting and heartfelt stories.