WeHa Book Club

*Spoiler-Free Review*

As I’m sure you will all come to realize, as this site continues to document my book selections and reading habits, I’m a bit of an author-loyalist. Or perhaps this falls more into the ‘completionist’ category? I’m not entirely sure. The point is, once I find an author I like, I’m probably going to dig through their entire bibliography. And right now, that author is Gabrielle Zevin.

Most moderately active readers have likely heard of her most recent release, Tomorrow, and Tomorrow, and Tomorrow (or at least seen the cover). It dropped in 2022, but I finally got around to reading it a few weeks ago and was absolutely blown away. You can check out that spoiler-free review here.

Naturally, I started wondering what else Gabrielle Zevin has written and whether Tomorrow, and Tomorrow, and Tomorrow was a fluky, one-hit wonder or if Zevin was a brilliant writer who has been crushing it for a while and just finally got one to achieve ‘book of the year’ status.

So, I went over to Goodreads to check out the general temperature of her other releases. I try not to put too much stock into crowd-sourced rating websites (like Rotten Tomatoes, for example), but it’s a good starting point if you’re looking for your next book.

I started by seeing what her highest rated books were and then read through a few synopses to see what jumped out at me. I settled on The Storied Life of A.J. Fikry, the third of Zevin’s five novels (or eighth of her ten novels, counting Young Adult).

Fikry actually marks Zevin’s return to adult novels after spending the previous three years writing the “Birthright” series, a YA trilogy set in a dystopian future where chocolate and coffee are illegal. She had previously released two stand-alone YA novels, including Elsewhere which I picked up from the library yesterday and plan on tackling soon.

The Storied Life of A.J. Fikry follows a bookstore owner who has fallen on some tough times. After losing some of the most important people in his life and feeling a general malaise about the world at large, his store begins to fail due to his increasing neglect.

A.J. Fikry is suddenly forced to rethink everything when a baby is left at his store with a note saying the mother wanted her “to grow up in a place with books and among people who care about those kinds of things”.

While this story never quite reached the heights of Tomorrow, and Tomorrow, and Tomorrow, it was a quick, enjoyable read with tons of emotional depth and a decently satisfying conclusion. Not entirely without flaws, but you could see the seeds of everything that worked so well in Tomorrow.

Zevin is able to create these incredibly complicated characters who feel wholly decent but not without baggage and isn’t that how so many people are in the real world? The plot is compelling in its own right, but it’s her cast of characters that really stick with you after the story is complete.

I would definitely start with Tomorrow, and Tomorrow, and Tomorrow, but if you’re as taken with it as I was, then The Storied Life of A.J. Fikry is something you’ll almost definitely enjoy.

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The Storied Life of A.J. Fikry by Gabrielle Zevin