Wow. I am 100% in my lit fic era and I love it. It's devastating and raw and heart wrenching and beautiful and I love it.

There is nothing that can prepare you for this book and there is little I can say to describe it without giving some of the beauty away.

This book reminds me of a rainy day, where you're curled up on the couch with a hot drink and a blanket and you feel safe enough to think about hard things, about past things, about everything, and you know that you're not there in these moments anymore, so you can feel all that you need to feel.

Highly recommend.

I started this on a Friday night after work, a little distracted and on edge after a stressful week. It’s part of a Christmas gift idea (I picked books for all of my family members and am going to make notes as I read them and then give them the book), figured I’d get started (I have a big family).

Today, I sat for three hours at the coffee bar in my favorite bookstore and finished the whole thing. Once it got going, it got going, and I could not stop or put this story down!

First of all, I loved seeing each loose thread of storytelling get neatly tucked back into the overall plot. No detail was mentioned without a purpose—even if you as the reader didn’t find out that purpose until much, much later—and I loved the feeling of each clue slotting into place.

Second, the twists! The turns! I mean from the first page, I thought I had it all figured out, and then new potential suspects kept popping up, new details adding to an already jumbled detective’s board. Kept me on my toes for sure.

And lastly, I really loved the character work. There are many universal experiences when it comes to college and one of them is the symbiosis—or lack thereof—between a college and the town it inhabits. I loved how this book explored through multiple characters: people from the town, people only there for college, those who straddled the lines of both worlds, etc.

I did think the wrap-up came a little fast, but honestly, I’m learning to enjoy the pacing of thrillers. It’s different often than a rom com or a mystery and definitely different than lit fic, but it creates its own sort of energy I like to slip into every once in a while.

Overall, highly recommend for those rainy days with a cup of tea and a cozy blanket. Just keep the lights on. 😉

I wish there was a way to write two reviews for the same book: one based on vibes and one based on plot points. One based on the first 174 pages and one based on everything after. Alas, there is not, so here goes my attempt at making that happen in one review.

I have been reading a lot more lit fic and memoirs recently, and for some reason, it has made me a little more particular with all of my reviews. Perhaps it has skewed what a five star read truly is, how it makes me feel at the end; it used to be that a five star read left me feeling content and satisfied and light and happy. Now I seem to want to be devastated. Is this what 25 does to you? I'm only a few months away, I suppose it's possible.

Battle of the Bookstores started a little slow for me. I think there was a lot of forced enemies to lovers in the beginning, with a lot of miscommunication causing the mistakes/blunders/hijinks/etc. between Josie and Ryan rather than true challenges/issues between them. I'm not a huge fan of miscommunication as a plot device (although it was brought to my attention that may be because it is too realistic?? AGH. What a concept.), and I much more of a friends to lovers gal than I am enemies to lovers, so it is entirely possible the first portion of the book felt slow to me because of those two components.

But man oh man, once you hit page 174? (yes, that is a very specific page) Full steam ahead!! I felt like we got so much more depth and backstory from both characters, I could see both of them growing, the chemistry was no longer due to frustration only, and I started to feel myself sink into the story.

I will also admit that I read pretty much the remainder of the book in one sitting, which does of course change the experience. I think if you read the whole book in one sitting, rather than reading the start and then stopping, and then picking it up again, it may work better. Which I find fascinating. Some books are just meant to be read in one sitting.

Overall, I really liked seeing two career focused people who still deeply cared about the community. I often see the career driven characters portrayed as cold and icy without a care in the world for anyone else around them, and while that may be true of some professions, others are deeply invested in the world, and that's what drives them to be career oriented in the first place (cough, journalists, cough). I also loved the emotional depth both of their characters brought to the page. They had to learn to love one another, and that part wasn't off page, it was smack dab in the middle, which I really appreciated.

I freely admit that I don't think, as someone in America with a roof over my head and a job that provides me with basic necessities, that my brain can ever fully understand what is happening in Gaza. I sit in such a privileged position to read about these horrors and atrocities rather than live through them. I am able to put down the book when it gets to be too much. And not a single person living through genocide can do that. But by reading this book, I can learn about the strength and resilience of Palestinian people. I can understand that this death and destruction happening so far from me is multilayered, is happening with years and years and years of history at its back, and no headline or news article will ever be able to capture it all. And I can admit, as I read these pages, that I am not doing enough. There will always be more to do, and those of us in position to learn and help in any way we can, have a duty to help humanity. Thank you, Plestia, for being yourself. From one journalist to another: We're not heroes, and we're not villains, though people may think we are. We're doing what we can, because our humanity demands that of us.