The Bookshop on the Corner by Jenny Colgan

I absolutely loved this audiobook. I felt like I was sucked into Nina's life and couldn't wait to find out what happened next. This book was clearly written for bookish people like Nina, who have all always wished to run a bookstore (every person who loves books has had that fantasy), but it was also set in beautiful rural Scotland, and the setting played a great part in the novel as well. Nina gets let go from her job at a library in Birmingham because they are shutting down the library, and she decides to buy a van and be a bookseller. She ends up having to travel up to northern Scotland to pick it up, and ends up staying there to sell her books. She begins to live life for the first time, instead of just relying on books to live, and she begins to make friends and actually fall in love in real life for the first time. I loved how Nina came out of her shell and bloomed (excuse my mixed metaphors) as the book went on--I felt like her character was one I could relate to (once she stopped being so timid as she gained confidence as the book went on). I loved the setting of rural Scotland, and the blatantly Scottish experiences Nina has (particularly the farmers' dance and the midsummer party) that really made me be able to envision it and made me want to be there so badly. I loved how Nina really contrasted Birmingham and Scotland so well, and showed why she loved it. I could see how some people would hate living there, but I could see how Nina would love it. It fit very well with her personality, and it was such a pleasure to see her succeed and grow. The romance was also great too. I loved it.

My one complaint about this book was that it seemed a little unrealistic that Nina should have such complete success so easily, selling books in this tiny Scottish village. It seemed like she didn't travel around the countryside as much as I'd expect, and she still was selling enough books to get by in just this tiny village. She didn't seem to need to stock up on new books very much--just got a couple sets of books from libraries shutting down, and that was apparently fine to set her up all summer. I felt like there could have been a little more focus on the work of owning the bookshop, since that was the main focus of the first half of the book as she got it set up, but I still hugely enjoyed the story.