Review Detail

LOVE IN A LITTLE FREE LIBRARY by Lucy Flowers is a YA Romance and Coming-Of-Age novel. Elle has a lot of secrets, like what she discovered on her birth certificate, what really happened that led to her house arrest, and most recently, the fact that she’s secretly dating her next-door neighbor. Confessing to any of these, though, would send her perfectionist mom into an even more extreme and controlling spiral, so Elle must keep her lips shut. Instead, while serving her isolating punishment, she communicates to the outside world through her Bookish YouTube channel and covert letters left in her Little Free Library outside her house. Eventually, Ozzy, her neighbor-turned-boyfriend, starts pushing Elle to explore what she’s been hiding, and as she does, what she uncovers is even worse and better than she ever could have imagined. The problem is that to truly embark on this personal journey, Elle may need to leave her mom and Ozzy behind.

Firstly, I love the cover of this book so much! It’s cute, romantic, and whimsical, and does a great job at depicting the beginning of Ozzy and Elle’s relationship. One of my favorite elements of this story is how Ozzy and Elle start communicating with each other, needing to find alternatives to the typical ways people contact each other today. Since they go back to traditional pen and paper love notes, it makes how their feelings develop all the more classic and nostalgic. I also enjoy a lot of the peripheral characters in this book, such as Uncle Theo, and the different coaches and teachers who are hired to work with Elle. Their relationships feel carefree and honest, which is a nice contrast to Elle and her mom.

What would have made this book even better for me would have been if Elle had revealed the story of her ex-boyfriend to her mom, and if her mom had shared a legitimate reason for why she did what she did. As an overall point, there are major moments that happen so quickly. If they had had more breathing room, the emotional beats would have landed even stronger, especially since the story deals with heavy themes of sexual assault, mental illness, abuse, and fraud.

That said, LOVE IN A LITTLE FREE LIBRARY is certainly an adventure that has more to offer than what would initially meet the eye. It reminded me of THE FAULT IN OUR STARS when Hazel and Gus go to Amsterdam, and shares a similar tone. This book would be good for any reader looking for a cathartic journey in which things work out in the end.