Book Review: The Reading List by Sara Nisha Adams

Thank you to Edelweiss and HarperCollins for an ARC of this title, on sale August 2021.

TW: Suicide, mental illness, agoraphobia

The Reading List, from debut novelist Sara Nishi Adams, features everything I like about books: great characters, libraries, and books about books. This novel splits the narrative between Mukesh, a Kenyan immigrant who is searching for meaning after the death of his wife and nitpicking from his three adult children, and Aleisha, a highly unmotivated teenager working at her local library. Their paths collide when Mukesh, mourning his wife, enters the library and is met by Aleisha, who makes it very clear she would like nothing less than assisting him. After a brief exchange, Mukesh leaves, embarrassed.

Aleisha, feeling guilty about the encounter, discovers a small slip of paper containing books on a reading list. Feeling somewhat adrift herself, she picks up the first book on the list, To Kill a Mockingbird, and immediately falls into the book and its characters. Once finishing the novel, she resolves to make things right with Mukesh, and thus begins a friendship of sharing books.

What I loved about this book:

1) Books about books!! Adams definitely captured the magic of reading and libraries, and how a community can come together through its local library

2) Diversity! I adored it. Great representation of cultures, languages, customs.

3) Writing style. The prose was really nice, flowed very well, and I could tell a lot of care went into writing the book.

4) the books that made the list!! I'm SO glad some contemporary and modern classics made the list. I'm so tired of this attitude of 'oh the only books worth reading are the classics.' Spare me.

What I didn't love about the book:

1) Aidan's suicide. I liked how sudden it was because that really does reflect well what life is like for people who are suicidal and how depression can be so hidden. The way it magically brought everyone together and suddenly made Aleisha's mother a decent person, though? Hard pass.

2) Slow plot. The book either needed more action or lose about 50 pages.

3) This is so nitpicky and I'm gonna get shit on for this, but librarians are people who have an MLIS. The way librarian was thrown around casually ruffled my feathers (trust me, I will get over this).