Welcome to Romancing the Stacks! This is a series of reviews featuring one of my favorite genres: Romance Novels! In my opinion, there’s nothing better than curling up with a good romance. This review will explore The Bookish Life of Nina Hill by Abbi Waxman.

I found this book listed under the upcoming new releases on the library website. I loved the title and when I read the summary I decided I must read this book. I connected with Nina through a summary, and was super excited to read, but waited patiently until it finally came.

Summary:

The only child of a single mother, Nina has her life just as she wants it: a job in a bookstore, a kick-butt trivia team, a world-class planner, and a cat named Phil. If she sometimes suspects there might be more to life than reading, she just shrugs and picks up a new book. 

When the father Nina never knew existed suddenly dies, leaving behind innumerable sisters, brothers, nieces, and nephews, Nina is horrified. They all live close by! They’re all – or mostly all – excited to meet her! She’ll have to Speak. To. Strangers. It’s a disaster! And as if that wasn’t enough, Tom, her trivia nemesis, has turned out to be cute, funny, and deeply interested in getting to know her. Doesn’t he realize what a terrible idea that is?

Nina considers her options.

1. Completely change her name and appearance. (Too drastic, plus she likes her hair.) 
2. Flee to a deserted island. (Hard pass, see: coffee).
3. Hide in a corner of her apartment and rock back and forth. (Already doing it.)

It’s time for Nina to come out of her comfortable shell, but she isn’t convinced real life could ever live up to fiction. It’s going to take a brand-new family, a persistent suitor, and the combined effects of ice cream and trivia to make her turn her own fresh page

My Review:

I enjoyed this book. I like Nina and her relationships with others. I like how there was no villain in this story, it was just a slice of life story. The best way to describe this book is that by reading it, you take a walk in the life of Nina Hill. She felt like a real person even though some of the situations she winds up in are something out of a soap opera.

I liked how her anxiety was not solved by her romance as it has in other novels that I have read. She got into a relationship and still had the anxiety. It didn’t go away, because that is not how anxiety works. It never really goes away, you just have to find ways to manage it. This book made me feel better about my own anxieties. The way she described them was relatable, at least to me.

The cast of characters in this book was great. Nina’s new family made for great interactions, and they were all eventually very likable. Reading Nina’s interactions with her new family was fun.

I liked Tom and Nina’s relationship and how it expanded. The book did show some of Tom’s interactions, which I wish were expanded upon. For instance, he had a stalker ex-girlfriend, and I wish that had been expanded upon. I also wished that Tom had undergone a change. Nina had to embrace some new experiences to make their relationship work, but Tom just had to agree to it. I felt that, considering Tom’s past relationships, he could have undergone a similar change as Nina did.

This was a good read, but I don’t think it is for everyone. If you enjoy a good escape into another person’s life book, you will like it. This book is more about personal growth with romance sprinkled in.