Loveday Cardew prefers books to people. If you look carefully, you might glimpse the first lines of the novels she loves most tattooed on her skin. But there are some things Loveday will never show you.
Into her refuge - the York book emporium where she works - come a poet, a lover, a friend, and three mysterious delivers, each of which stirs unsettling memories.
Everything is about to change for Loveday. Someone knows about her past and she can't hide any longer. She must decide who around her she can trust. Can she find the courage to right a heartbreaking wrong? And will she ever find the words to tell her own story?
LOST FOR WORDS by Stephanie Butland
Genre: Fiction, Contemporary Romance, Women's Fiction, Books About Books
Published: 2017
My rating: ⭐⭐⭐⭐
Lost for Words is a moving contemporary fiction about living with trauma. Surviving. Finding yourself under the layers, and letting other people see you too. There's love, there's grief, there's fear and there's laughter - one of the best healers. And of course, there's books!
"Nobody bothers children who read. I read."
This book captured the heart of the introverted booklover inside of me. I could pull a number of quotes and relate them to my life with an unapologetic laugh. But the main character, Loveday, unlike myself, has a deep and dark secret that makes it hard for her to trust and hard for her to break free of the comfort of the bookstore in which she works.
The mystery of her dark past unfolds with tantalising slowness, and even though at times I suspected what would be revealed about her childhood, I wanted it not be true. I could understand what led her to seek comfort from books for so many years, for books are an escape. But books can also hurt you. They provoke memories that lead us down roads we haven't visited in so long. They remind us of what we can never have, or what we were forced to leave behind. They tell us that not all beginnings are tragic, and not all ending are happy. Sometimes it's the other way around.
Where books offer Loveday a refuge and a confusing link to her past, poetry is a gateway to the truth, giving expression to the emotion's and secrets she's been stifling, and giving a window of insight to those around her.
The poems that feature are quirky, and so fitting to represent the characters. The final poem that features is called The Bookshop and it turned my heart to butter.
"There's the simple love of books, of course: the knowledge that here is an escape, a chance to learn, a place for your heart and mind to romp and play."
Loveday is a fragile heroine at times, with strength cemented at her core. She's endearingly antisocial, passionately defensive of books and secretly poetic. I was drawn into her story from her first word to her last.
This beautifully multi-layered book is one that I recommend to anyone with an interest in humans, or in literature. You will learn something about both by the time you're through reading.
"A bookshop is not magic, but it can steal away your heart."
Zuzu 🖋
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