REVIEW: The Storied Life of A.J. Fikry

If you don’t like to read, you should give this book a try.

If you love to read, you must give this book a try.

The Storied Life of A.J. Fikry is the story of a life embedded with literature and in itself is a woven literary masterpiece.

I paused after reading the first 20 pages because I’d started it at night. The next day I was lucky enough to have an afternoon available to read and I found myself unable to put the book down.

Being an editor, and therefore often in the company of writers and writing, I found a new friend in author Gabrielle Zevin. (To clarify: I am not acquainted with Gabrielle, though I’d love to meet her someday. 🙂 I’ve linked to her personal website here merely to assist those readers interested in learning more about her.)

This is not a timeless story, in fact it is quite important that it is placed in the decade or so when ebooks rose to the forefront of literary technology. And yet it is a timeless story because it’s not about that, but about reading in general, something we’ve been doing for centuries.

Each chapter begins by pointing out a story, and as soon as I finished the book I wanted to read each one of them—even those I’ve read before—because it reminded me that good reading does exist, it just feels harder to find these days.

I’m not putting down modern fiction, I’m merely saying as the catalog of the world’s books grows, it becomes more difficult each day to find something I want to read.

This book was a pleasant breeze. The overall theme of the connection between readers and stories was so beautiful I couldn’t put it down.

In fact, it’s been almost a year since I read this book and I can’t stop thinking about it so much so that I had to post this review! That’s a mark of a good book to me!

The Storied Life of A.J. Fikry is a love letter to literature, readers, bookstores and their owners, and the important connections in life itself. Grab a box of tissues for the end, and read this book today. You won’t regret it.