The Readers of Broken Wheel Recommend

by Katarina Bivald

January 19, 2016 · Sourcebooks Landmark

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Genre: Women's Fiction

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NB: The Readers of Broken wheel Recommend has been on our radar for a while, so we’re happy to have this squee-worthy guest review from Kim W. Kim W. is a grantwriter for a nonprofit in Northern California. She enjoys knitting, plundering the library, and dog-watching with her new husband.

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The Readers of Broken Wheel Recommend is Guernsey Literary and Potato Peel Pie Society with a little of To Wong Foo, Thanks for Everything! Julie Newmar. If you like books about books, you’ll love this book. If you like warm and funny books about small towns, you’ll love this book. If you like love stories between an unstoppable force and an immovable object, you’ll love this book.

The main character is Sara, a former bookstore employee who is used to reading about others’ adventures, not living them. She’s determined, occasionally frazzled, and funny in a quiet way—I found her relatable but refreshing. She’s almost immediately attracted to Tom, one of the “young people” that Sara had read about in Amy’s letters. She just as quickly decides that Tom would never be interested in someone like her (which felt familiar but not hackneyed).

Tom is like the town itself: stuck between past and future, struggling between not wanting to give up and not wanting to hope. He’s drawn to Sara, but not really sure what to make of her optimism or her faith in books. Their first real conversation is about whether books or people are better (I think the book’s answer is both, but neither answer is depicted as wrong), which tells you something about TRoBWR.

Although we spend the most time with Sara and Tom, one of the best things about this book is its cast of richly portrayed secondary characters, many of whom are lonely and just waiting for something to give them direction. We get to know Amy, and her warmth and sense of humor, through her letters and the memories other characters have of her. We root for “Poor George,” who wants to be helpful and effective but is struggling with his own loss. We see under Caroline’s “stereotypical church lady” façade to the woman underneath—her frustration and longing and dry amusement. Full disclosure, I love Caroline.

On a related note, I VERY HIGHLY recommend the audiobook. Each of the characters’ voices is wonderfully unique to her or him.

If you’re looking for a straightforward hero/heroine romance, TRoBWR isn’t it; the secondary characters’ lives and relationships are given a relatively large amount of “screen time” in comparison to Sara’s relationship with Tom. However, their romance is still at the core of the novel. One of the things that I think is great about TRoBWR is its excellent, subtle depictions of female desire, especially Sara’s for Tom. Her attraction toward him, and his toward her, has a physical quality throughout, and is depicted in wonderfully tactile ways. At the same time, there’s a hesitancy on both sides. It’s the kind of slow-blossoming romance where even when they’re not touching, they are:

It was as though all previous thoughts of avoiding Tom had vanished. She was acutely aware of exactly where he was the entire time. As though quietly murmuring radar, placed high in her chest, was keeping track of where he was standing and who he was with. She wanted both to avoid him and for him to come over to her. Every time she saw him talking to someone else—and he seemed to be determined to talk to everyone except her—she found herself thinking that he should be talking to her instead, standing next to her, smiling at her.

Some of the best and funniest sections of TRoBWR are the long ruminations on books. Part of what makes these so great is that Sara and Amy are omnivorous readers who enjoy “the classics” but are not book snobs. Sara devours Jane Eyre and Terry Pratchett, Harry Potter and the Jack Reacher novels, Pride and Prejudice and gay erotica. Bonus: there’s a bibliography at the end with all the books and authors mentioned throughout. This book is hazardous to your to-read pile.

My criticisms of Broken Wheel are minimal, and didn’t take away from my enjoyment of the book. In the last 20% or so, there’s much less discussion of books, and more focus on a somewhat rom-com plot to keep Sara in the U.S. It’s still fun, but I did miss some of the lit talk. I also felt like there were such low stakes for Sara to want to return to Sweden. At times, it felt like she had never really lived there at all, and while that’s kind of the point, I wanted just a bit more sense of conflict. Finally, Tom and Sara’s chemistry sizzles, when it’s there, but I would have liked just a little MORE. (But I can basically never get enough of characters experiencing unresolved longing and sexual tension, sooo…)

There’s a scene where Sara is creating new, more appealing classifications for the books in her bookstore. One is “feel-good books”:

Feel-good books were ones you could put down with a smile on your face, books that made you think the world was a little crazier, stranger, and more beautiful when you looked up from them. Sara wondered whether she should make signs saying HAPPY ENDING GUARANTEED!, but maybe that would be revealing too much.

If you like feel-good books, you’ll love this book.