Connect
Sponsors
Currently Reading
-
Terms
The Book Lady's Blog is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-Noncommercial-No Derivative Works 3.0 United States License.
Reviews and articles posted here are property of The Book Lady's Blog and are not to be posted elsewhere without permission. Please contact me if you wish to post any of my work, or any excerpt thereof, in any other location or format.
Miscellaneous
Meet Bookrageous!
Technical Stuff
Design Credits
Aug
04
Book Review: How to Buy a Love of Reading by Tanya Egan Gibson
2009 at 10am Posted by Rebecca Joines Schinsky
Published May 2009 by Penguin
Before you even ask, no, How to Buy a Love of Reading is not a how-to book, at least not in the traditional sense. It is a novel. And this is what it’s about.
Carley Wells is about to turn sixteen, and things are not going so well for her. She has average grades and no interests outside of watching TV, she’s overweight (a fact her mother won’t let her forget), and she is hopelessly in love with her best friend Hunter, who just happens to be the school heartthrob. Carley is growing up in a ritzy Long Island neighborhood like the one that inspired Fitzgerald’s East and West Egg locales in The Great Gatsby, but she wouldn’t know that because she’s never read the book. In fact, she claims to have never met a book she liked.
And her biggest mistake was admitting that to her overbearing English teacher, who found it so alarming that he told her parents, who now have no choice but to do something about it.
Carley’s father can see that she is “disappearing, letting insubstantial people chip off pieces of her self,” but since he doesn’t know what to do about that, he figures he’ll find a solution to a problem he feels more comfortable with. His daughter needs an interest, a passion, something to make her stand out in the future pool of college applicants, so he will hire an author to write a book to Carley’s specifications. Nevermind that Carley has no idea what her specifications might be.
Enter Bree McEnroy, an obscure writer of overwrought fiction replete with page-long footnotes and meta-elements. Bree’s combat boots and leather pants make her stick out like a sore thumb at the fancy Long Island parties thrown in her honor, but Carley knows what it feels like to be different and eventually opens up to Bree much more than she expected to. The two forge an uneasy friendship that allows Bree to move beyond her self-conscious writing and that helps Carley to see her relationship with Hunter from a new angle, but things aren’t all butterflies and rainbows.
Hunter is on a path of self-destruction, addicted to pain pills and alcohol, and incapable of separating himself from Carley even though he knows his attention and affection give her the wrong idea. Carley knows she should stop making excuses for Hunter and should stop letting him use her for comfort and friendship only when it’s convenient for him, but she just can’t seem to do it. Plus, she needs Hunter to help her understand exactly what is so special about books, anyway.
And that’s where it gets really good. Gibson frames each section of How to Buy a Love of Reading with a quote from F. Scott Fitzgerald and fills the story with references to literature and bibliophilic tidbits that we bookish folks will find irresistible. Carley doesn’t want to read, but she wants to want to. She knows that Hunter “saw something in books she couldn’t fathom—a whole other life,” and figures that, at the very least, understanding books will enable her to understand him a bit better.
How to Buy a Love of Reading is ostensibly about Carley and Bree and the process of writing a book to one girl’s idiosyncratic specifications. But it is also about friendship and relationships and what it’s like to be a teenager. And it is about loving books. That’s why, though Hunter is troubled and mean and far from perfect, he is also my favorite character. Hunter gets it.
In Fitzgerald and Vonnegut and Carver was assurance of one’s not-aloneness. To be a devout reader was to be an acolyte of solace.
That’s pretty perfect, right?
And that means that Tanya Egan Gibson gets it, and I just love it when an author gets it.
I enjoyed the story in How to Buy a Love of Reading, but I LOVED everything else—the references and allusions to great literature, the subtle social commentary, the smart humor, the sharp and decidedly un-melodramatic exploration of teenage angst, and every last nuggets of nerdy goodness. I can’t even really explain it—there are just a ton of wonderful little gifts for booklovers hidden in this book. So you should read it and find out. 4.5 out of 5.
Special thanks to the author for sending me this book to review. Visit Tanya Egan Gibson at How to Buy a Love of Reading, follow her on Twitter, and come back tomorrow for a guest post.
No related posts.
[...] Book Review: How to Buy a Love of Reading by Tanya Egan Gibson [...]
The references to literature sound terrific. This book sounds like a winner!
I thought this one was non-fiction! I actiually thought it was a guide on how to cultivate a love of reading. I must add this one to my list.
This is one I really want to read! Can’t go wrong with a book about books, right?
I think that’s a common misconception, and it’s totally understandable! Loved the book, would definitely change the title if it were up to me.
I’ll be reviewing this one too in the coming months. I read the title and instantly knew it was a book I must read!
This sounds great! And this time I’m writing this down, so I can report how often books I want to read come from blog recommendations!
I really enjoyed this book as well. Great review!
I have been looking for a book to love–thanks for finding one for me!
A book written just for one particular person? that (and of course all the literary references) sounds fantastic! I’m going to have to look for this one.
A great review for a great book.The author’s observations on life on Long Island are pointed and brilliant–she has a sharp and observant pen.
Oh, this sounds like a great read! I love when there are “extras’ to enjoy, aside from the plot, like those gems my kids talk about in video games (Easter Eggs, I think they call them)
Thanks for the recommendation!
I really had no idea what this book was about, thank you for enlightening me! Now I really want to read it, lol
[...] How to Buy a Love of Reading by Tanya Egan Gibson (via The Book Lady’s Blog) [...]
[...] Book Review: How to Buy a Love of Reading by Tanya Egan Gibson [...]
You’ve just added another book to my to-read list! Thanks for the review.
–Anna
I must read this one!! Excellent review!
I have been wanting to check this one out! Thanks for the review, I love the time and detail you put into your reviews, I guess I better check this one out now!!
Thanks!
I like the look of this one!
Great review…. totally into it and would love to read this book!
[...] at warp speed or anything as after all – it is Monday, but at a fair pace. I stopped in at The Book Lady’s Blog and found a book review on a book called How To Buy A Love of Reading by Tanya Egan Gibson. The [...]
I am back. I featured this review in my Morning Meanderings today. I think it just sounds wonderful!
I just saw this book at the store today and it looks so good! Glad to see such a great review… hope I can read this one soon!
A saw this in a bookstore recently, and I was intrigued. Base d on your review, it’s going on my TBR list!
Just because you allure the book to The Great Gatsby, I’ll have to read this one. I’ve had second thoughts about the book but I still haven’t picked it up. Thanks for a great, thoughtful review!
Just finished this book. Very well written. but way too complicated in it’s structure. Could have told the same story without all the metaphors, analogies, characters within books vs. real characters. It shouldn’t be hard work to read a book. I’d give it a 3.5.