The Reading List by Sara Nisha Adams

“Books aren’t always an escape; sometimes they teach us things. They show us the world; they don’t hide it.”

A book about books, libraries and how books can help and teach us?! Yes, please! Mukesh is a widower with three grown daughters who are worried about him. He has isolated himself since his wife, Naina, passed away. Naina was an avid reader and connected with their granddaughter over books. Mukesh is struggling to connect with anyone when he finds a book his wife never returned to the library. He reads it and is so overcome by it he is compelled to go to the library his wife frequented to find more books.

Aleisha is a non-reading teenager working a summer job at the library. Life circumstances have made Aleisha a cranky library employee. She is unkind to Mukesh but feels bad about the way she treated him. She finds a reading list in a book and begins recommending the titles on the list to Mukesh, as she reads them too. The duo connects with each other and with their families as the books teach them about themselves.

There is so much to this story about friendship, family (given and chosen), grief, mental health and of course, books! There are flashback short chapters with minor characters throughout the story that had me a bit confused, but I continued through them and was so glad I did. This is a lovely story about so much and I highly recommend it!

Check out The Reading List by Sara Nisha Adams at the Library (https://catalog.lclibs.org/polaris/search/title.aspx…) or in the eLibrary at https://lclibs.overdrive.com/media/5715509.