Nothing will stop Madeline Moore from taking over her family's independent bookstore after college. Nothing, that is—until a chain bookstore called Prologue opens across the street and threatens to shut them down. Madeline sets out to demolish the competition, but the guy who works over at Prologue seems intent on ruining her life. Not only is he taking her customers, he has the unbelievable audacity to be... extremely cute. But that doesn't matter. Jasper is the enemy and he will be destroyed. After all—all's fair in love and (book) war.
This is the bookstore book of my dreams, honestly. You've Got Mail is one of the best rom-coms of all time, and I was pretty obsessed with both the similarities and the differences between the film and the book. There were also a bunch of fun references/bookish things—new books coming out on Tuesdays, the Goodreads comment—that made my book-loving heart happy. Rodkey herself describes the book's similarity to You've Got Mail as a coincidence that she leaned into, and I did feel that here. While there were some obvious elements (the rival bookstores "owners", the fate of the bookstores, the romance), there were still plenty of differences that all just works out to mean that if you love books, you should check out Last Chance Books.
The best thing about this book is all its emotion. It is really chock-full of all of the feels—from anger and resentment to jealousy to happiness and fear and hope—that it's impossible not to get invested in what's happening, and to make you feel on Madeline's side as we journey with her through the summer. While I couldn't always empathize with her behavior, I did find myself sympathizing with her, especially when it came to her relationships with Dahlia and Astrid. I love that YA is getting more layered and emotional, and felt that this book really captured all the emotions that young adults feel during that weird, tumultuous time before leaving for college. I also loved how all of the emotions Madeline felt could be boiled down to how she felt she needed to act since her mom abandoned her when she was young, and that the novel could be described as her way of learning who she is in the face of that early life abandonment, and how to move forward. I felt that to also be a strength of the narrative.
The only thing that prevented me from rating this as a four star read was the inconsistencies that appeared. I read this book pretty quickly (in less than 48 hours, probably), and I kept feeling like I was running into things that made me wonder if I was missing something. For example, Madeline describes her clothes in a myriad of ways: from being old, out of style, something her mom likes to take from her. But she also describes herself as wanting in-style clothes? And the way that she is very clearly not a manager of the store, and yet acts like one and treats Astrid pretty poorly without apologizing near the end of the book really, really bothered me. The voice also felt inconsistent at points—this is a YA but with the amount of cursing and blatancy of the prose, it read older than the oldest of YA to me. I wasn't entirely sure what the point of this voice was, because I did feel at least it would have worked more effectively at least without as much cursing, and it overall created an effect that left me feeling weird about the book's voice.
All-in-all, an enjoyable read from Kelsey Rodkey in Last Chance Books, and is definitely one to read if you're a big You've Got Mail fan or just a book lover all around. Because not only do we get an emotional story, but how can one resist that cover? You can find more from Rodkey online at www.kelseyrodkey.com.
*This review can also be found on my Goodreads page*
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