The Readers of Broken Wheel Recommend

Sometimes you buy a book on a whim because the cover looks pretty.  Or because the teaser on the back makes you giggle.  Or just because.  That is how this book came to be in my possession:  a splurge birthday book.  And I’m so glad that I bought it.

This quirky book is about Sara, a book enthusiast from Sweden, who decides to spend her vacation meeting her pen pal Amy in her small Iowa town.  But when Sara gets to the town of Broken Wheel, she stumbles upon Amy’s funeral.  The town, not quite sure what to do with their Swedish visitor, decides to let her stay at Amy’s house and tries their best to show off their dying town.  At first Sara is shocked to find the town isn’t as vibrant as Amy’s letters made it out to be, but soon the eccentric citizens grow on her.  Sara decides to give something back to the town, something that her and Amy both loved:  books.  She decides to open a small book store full of Amy’s books to spread her love to reading to this small, forgotten town.

Most of the time, this book is hilarious.  Like when the townspeople decide Sara needs a vacation romance and push Tom, the town’s most eligible bachelor, in her direction.  Or pious Caroline trying to fix the town’s troubles one church collection at a time.  Or Grace, the smart-mouthed owner of the one cafe in town who swears off reading.  Or Jen, the overbearing town transplant, who tries to force the town’s newsletter on everyone.

One thing I had to get used to with the storytelling, however, was the third person perspective.  You don’t realize it until the perspective changes to another character’s thoughts, and it takes a minute to reorient yourself to the new character’s way of thinking.  But this point of view change also gives us insight into different characters’ motivations and doesn’t limit our town view to just Sara, so I feel the good outweighs the slightly awkward transitions.

This book was a refreshing read, and one I’d recommend to all book lovers.  I really enjoy Amy’s point: “Books are fantastic…but how fun is it to read a fantastic book if you can’t tell others about it, talk about, and quote from it constantly?”