Death of a Bookseller is as dark as it is captivating, as unsettling as it is addictive and a truly exceptional novel to get stuck into.
Death of a Bookseller, Alice Slater
Themes: Fiction, Contemporary, Mystery, Thriller
Reading Format: Hardback
5 STARS
I’ve never read a book that’s made me feel skin-crawlingly gross yet fascinated. I couldn’t put this book down, it captivated me from the off with its car-crash characters, bookshop setting and obsessive plot.
We’re seeing this plot told through Laura and Roach’s narratives, two very different characters who go through quite the journey together. Laura initially seems to have it all together with her matching beret and shoes, her organised book collection and her cheery attitude. Whereas Roach is bitter and judgy, she exudes an air of arrogance like she’s better than everyone else purely because she is not like them – except really she’s exactly like them, she just can’t see it. The two characters start off contrasting each other perfectly, and gradually their relationship becomes more knotted and complicated.
If you enjoy people-watching novels, this will definitely be for you, because it delves deeply into the psyche of these two leads. The way the author observed and wrote about each of these characters made them feel so real, especially Roach. Roach felt truly disgusting to me, she leapt off the page with her lack of self-hygiene and dismissive personality. The smells Slater describes in this book continue to add to the contract between Laura and Roach and make Roach seem so unappealing. And I now never want to be near a can of Dark Fruits again.
Slater gave the reader a real power here in diving deep into each character’s thought process and showing how they felt about each other. This was such a clever writing style because it alienated us further from Roach and began to do the same for Laura as we saw her character shift and change until she and Roach didn’t feel so different after all. I felt physically uncomfortable at times reading from Roach’s perspective whereas I just gradually started to dislike Laura.
This is a novel about the unravelling of these two characters, Roach’s obsession with Laura, her lack of understanding of social norms and her disdain for those around her. I was fascinated and I don’t think my review is doing this book justice because I can’t seem to put into words all the thoughts I had along the way whilst reading this. Great book, especially for any former booksellers too, it took me right back to my Waterstones days!
[affiliate] Buy a copy from Waterstones here
