The Seasonal Reading Challenge discussion
FALL CHALLENGE 2025
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Group Reads Discussion Post: The Lost Bookshop
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(view spoiler)
This reminded me of The Cottingley Secret, which I read for the Summer Challenge. If you enjoyed The Lost Bookshop, give it a go!

Anyway, enjoyed it while I was reading it but after it was over all I had left were questions.

Overall - I think I expected to like this book more than I did.
(view spoiler)
It took me longer to get through than usual - and it was a good read, I just think I was expecting more from it!

It left me with questions - some have already been mentioned. Additional questions: (view spoiler) .
I agree with the prior comments that Martha's sections didn't seem like current-day.



The book is okay. Not really cozy and a bit all over the place. Like Kelly, I also could have done without Henry’s point of view. There was way more sadness that I expected overall, and I struggled with the chapters at the mental institution. I did enjoy Martha’s life in Dublin and would recommend this book to others who enjoy magical realism more than I do.

While reading this, I wasn't sure whether I liked it or not. The Martha/Henry thing showed some promise and then kind of fell apart. It had the kinds of misunderstandings that were so basic that they seemed willful, which was tiresome after awhile. The Opaline storyline was more interesting and depressing in that it was a thing that families would often "park" a troublesome or inconvenient female relative in an asylum.
I ended up the book disliking Henry, baffled by Martha and admiring Opaline, but it didn't pull the book together enough for me to like it.
The requirement for task 20.10: You must participate in the book's discussion thread below with at least one post about the contents of the book or your reaction to the book after you have read the book.