Book Review with Spoilers | ARC Review | The Library of Borrowed Hearts by Lucy Gilmore

The Library of Borrowed Hearts

Finished: March 2024
Book Source: NetGalley
Book Publication Date: April 2024

A.J. Fikry meets The Bookish Life of Nina Hill in this charming, hilarious, and moving novel about the way books bring lonely souls together.

Librarian Chloe Sampson has been struggling: to take care of her three younger siblings, to find herself, to make ends meet. She’s just about at the end of her rope when she stumbles across a rare edition of a book from the 1960s at the local flea market. Deciding it’s a sign of her luck turning, she takes it home with her―only to be shocked when her cranky hermit of a neighbor swoops in and offers to buy it for an exorbitant price. Intrigued, Chloe takes a closer look at the book only to find notes scribbled in the margins between two young lovers back when the book was new…one of whom is almost definitely Jasper Holmes, the curmudgeon next door.

And when she begins following the clues left behind, she discovers this isn’t the only old book in town filled with their romantic marginalia. This kickstarts a literary scavenger hunt that Chloe is determined to see through to the end. What happened to the two tragic lovers who corresponded in the margins of so many different library books? And what does it have to do with the old, sad man next door―who only now has begun to open his home to Chloe and her siblings? In a romantic tale that spans the decades, Chloe discovers that there’s much more to her neighbor than meets the eye. And in allowing herself to accept the unexpected friendship he offers, she learns that some love stories begin in the unlikeliest of places.

Trigger Warnings:

Pregnancy, parent abandonment

Characters

Chloe Sampson – dropped out of library school to take care of her sibling after her mother left, she’s in her early 20s
Pepper – Chloe’s friend she works with at the library, she also has a special bond with Pepper’s grandma, Lonnie
Gunderson – Chloe’s boss
Chloe’s siblings – Trixie (15), Theo (11) wicked smart troublemaker, Noodle (12) real name is Aloysius, he is socially awkward
Gummy Bear – the Sampson’s dog
Jasper – the Sampson’s grumpy next door neighbor
Zach – young man who works at the Ranger Survival School in town, rescues Noodle after he fell off a cliff
Catherine – part of the past timeline, she moves to the small town with her parents since her father is a Major in the military there
William – soldier at the base, pursuing Catherine

My Review

I adored this book.

I absolutely adored how Gilmore crafted this with a dual timeline that is an interweaved, intergenerational story. The story weaves together these two timelines to give us a beautifully layered story.

The characters are real people with real struggles and triumphs.

The ending was perfect. It might not have been your typical “happily ever after,” but it was happy in its own right. It was real, raw, and oh-so-satisfying. So if you’re looking for a book that will sweep you off your feet, make you laugh, possibly cry, and ultimately leave you with a warm, fuzzy feeling in your heart, then “Library of Broken Hearts” is an absolute must-read.

Spoilers/Summary

SPOILERS BELOW. Stop here if you do not want to read spoilers.

Chloe finds an old, smuggled copy of Tropics of Cancer. There are notes left the book between two people, C and J. She sneaks it home to sell it. She goes to her neighbor, Jasper’s, house to get a frisbee back for her younger brother, and ends up going on a rant to him how she has no money and that she is even selling the old book to get by. He Gives her a blank check for the book.

Noodle falls down a cliff after her ran away from school. He ran away into the woods because he punched someone that was making fun of his family (he turned himself in). He breaks his leg and is saved by Zach, who happened to be in the area after the fall. Zach asks Chloe on a date, Chloe brings her whole family with. Zach and Chloe find out they are both into the story of the notes going back and forth in the old books and want to figure out the mystery. They visit Jasper and ask him about it. He tells them to visit Lonnie, Lonnie was good friends with Catherine when they were younger. They find another book at Lonnie’s.

Chloe’s mom comes back. Noodle had called her in because he thought Chloe could use help. Chloe’s mom is now married! Trixie and Theo are mad and leave the house and ask Jasper if they can stay with him. Theo stole the book from Chloe and use it as payment to stay with Jasper.

Jasper takes Noodle to the woods and shows him his cabin he used to live in. Noodles steals a book from the shelf, Withering Heights, and sees that Catherine had left him so many notes in it that Jasper had never seen. Noodle brings it to Zach. Everything is exposed – Zach is actually Jasper’s grandson. He moved there to meet Jasper. Catherine ends up flying in once she finds out Zach is going to tell Jasper who he is. Catherine and Jasper reunite but don’t get back together. Chloe’s mom leaves again, but in a better place this time. Catherine leaves but gives Chloe the gift of an email address to an editor at a big publishing house and tells her to email her. She should be working and making a better living and can do that from anywhere.

1960s timeline: Cather and Jasper are writing to each other in the book margins. They start seeing each other in private. Catherine ends up pregnant with Jasper’s baby. She gets William to agree to pretend it’s his and marry him, Catherine’s parents also will give Jasper a lot of money to stay quiet about everything. Catherine backs out of the marriage to William but decides to fake her death in child birth to make sure Jasper gets closure and doesn’t look for her. Jasper has his whole family back home to take care of monetarily and Catherine knows he would need to choose between that family and her and the baby.. and she doesn’t want to make him make that choice.