I feel like this book focused more on the lives of the characters and only glossed over the packhorse librarian project. “The Book Woman of Troublesome Creek” also went pretty in-depth into the lives and stories of the characters, but I gleaned way more knowledge and understanding of what the packhorse librarian project was all about from reading that one than I did from reading this one.
There is some foul language in this book, so if that isn’t your cup of tea, you may wish to pass this one by. It wasn’t awful and it wasn’t a lot, but there is some.
I listened to this book on audio through Libby … the narrator did a very nice job!
Title: The Giver of Stars
Author: Jojo Moyes
Genre: Literary Fiction
Publisher: Pamela Dorman Books
Release Date: October 8, 2019
Format: eAudio, print, eBooks, Audiobook
Pages: 400
Alice Wright marries handsome American Bennett Van Cleve hoping to escape her stifling life in England. But small-town Kentucky quickly proves equally claustrophobic, especially living alongside her overbearing father-in-law. So when a call goes out for a team of women to deliver books as part of Eleanor Roosevelt’s new traveling library, Alice signs on enthusiastically.
The leader, and soon Alice’s greatest ally, is Margery, a smart-talking, self-sufficient woman who’s never asked a man’s permission for anything. They will be joined by three other singular women who become known as the Packhorse Librarians of Kentucky.
What happens to them–and to the men they love–becomes an unforgettable drama of loyalty, justice, humanity and passion. These heroic women refuse to be cowed by men or by convention. And though they face all kinds of dangers in a landscape that is at times breathtakingly beautiful, at others brutal, they’re committed to their job: bringing books to people who have never had any, arming them with facts that will change their lives.
Based on a true story rooted in America’s past, The Giver of Stars is unparalleled in its scope and epic in its storytelling. Funny, heartbreaking, enthralling, it is destined to become a modern classic–a richly rewarding novel of women’s friendship, of true love, and of what happens when we reach beyond our grasp for the great beyond.