“The Giver of Stars”

It’s been a rainy week, which means curling up in bed to read. The Giver of Stars by Jojo Moyes was a good book for that.

Late last year I read The Book Woman of Troublesome Creek and loved it (see my thoughts here, it was book #27 of 2019). When a book popped up in my Book of the Month options about a pack horse library in Kentucky during the depression…I had to check it out. The books cover similar subject matter in a similar setting, so at first I was skeptical.

The book starts out slow, building up the characters and the setting. The deeper you get, though, the plot really takes off. After a slow start, I devoured the book in a few days.

I loved the characters in this book. Though I feel similarities between this and TBWTC, I enjoyed reading this as well.

Now, after I finished the book I went down the rabbit hole of thoughts around the similarities. I found this article helpful (warning: massive spoilers to both books as they compare plot points and characters).

In the end, I liked my time in Troublesome Creek better. Maybe it’s because I read it first and it opened my eyes to a piece of history I knew nothing about, whereas this book wasn’t as mind-blowing for me.

Weird sentence warning: If you’re going to read one book about the pack horse library in Kentucky this year, make it The Book Woman of Troublesome Creek.