Book 856: The Last Chance Library – Freya Sampson

When I saw the title of this one, it was a no brainer I was going to request a copy of it from the publisher.* I’m sure I read the blurb and thought it was a great premise, but by time I got around to reading it (months after I was approved) I had forgotten the premise of the novel.

The Last Chance Library is the story of June Jones. It’s ostensibly the story of her trying to save her local library which is threatened with closing because of council cuts, but it’s really the story of her finally getting over her mother’s death and the processing of the grief, while finding a community. There were also SOOO many books mentioned (I think I got them all in my list at the end of my post).

It was amazing how much June grew as a character from start to end and Sampson did a wonderful job of showing this in the first council meeting where June attempts to speak and fails miserably and her speech at the final council meeting:

“. . . libraries aren’t just about books. They’re places where an eight-year-old boy can have his eyes opened up to the wonders of the world, and where a lonely eighty-year-old woman can come for some vital human contact. Where a teenager can find precious quiet space to do her homework and a recently arrived immigrant can find a new community. Libraries are places where everyone, rich or poor, wherever they come from in the world, can feel safe. Where they can access information that will empower them.” (Chapter 32)

June found her confidence and her voice, but it took a lot to get there. The plot was 100% predictable, but it didn’t make the impact of the story or the characters any less. Seriously, I knew what was going to happen pretty much from the start (without having re-read the blurb), but Sampson still wrote a refreshing and endearing take on something that has become far too common in recent years.

There were so many lovely characters in this book from the two younger characters Chantal and Jackson to the misunderstood older woman Vera, to the love interest Alex (who just sounds swoon worthy) and June’s boss. They all had quirks and charm and depth that Sampson was able to get across without bogging the book down too much. But the two biggest characters, after June and Alex, were Mrs. B, the political spitfire, and Stanley, a kind old man who’d been trying to draw June out of her shell for years.

I adored Mrs. B, because of her over-the-top activism and how it contrasted to Stanley’s conservative (not just his newspaper preferences) demeanor. But there was also this scene which,

‘Grief can do funny things to you,’ Mrs. B said. ‘I lost someone a long time ago, and for ages after that I lost any desire to fight or protest. I just wanted to curl up and sleep.’
‘Were you married, Mrs. Bransworth?’ Stanley said.
‘No, I bloody well wasn’t. I’ve never really seen the point in men. But my partner, she—’ Mrs. B stopped. June had never seen her lost for words before.
‘How did you deal with the grief.’
‘I realized that by moping around and feeling sorry for myself, I was doing her a disservice. She loved me because I was angry and noisy and a pain in the arse. And by not living my life, by being scared and hiding away, I was letting her down.’ (Chapter 20).

No one made a big deal out of the revelation that Mrs. B was a lesbian, and her response about men was hilarious. They focused on what was important in the moment: how she dealt with her grief and became the women they knew.

The epilogue was a wonderful addition to the novel and I couldn’t help but feel pride for June. When she had the opportunity to stick with what she knew, to stay in her hometown, to continue as she had for years with minor improvements, she chose the harder choice and left. She went to find herself and it was just perfect, especially when you add in that she and Alex FINALLY kissed and acknowledged their attraction.

Recommendation: This was a wonderful read and I definitely recommend it if you see it! I knew I would enjoy it because of the library setting, but the characters were all just genuinely fun and well written. I hesitated for a few minutes when I realized June’s grief was about her mother, but each of the characters had their own thing they were dealing with and why they needed the library and they all really added to the story. I’m so glad I didn’t read this at the pool on vacation, it would’ve been another book added to the pile of me crying in public because it was so good and I legit teared up at the end because it was just such a perfect ending.

*I received a copy of The Last Chance Library from the publisher via NetGalley in return for my honest opinion. No goods or money were exchanged.

Opening Line: “You can tell a lot about a person from the library books they borrow.”

Closing Line: “Sounds perfect. Now, June Jones, I need to pick your brain on a book recommendation . . . “ (Whited out to avoid spoilers, highlight to read.)

Additional Quotes from The Last Chance Library
“Five minutes later, she sat down on the sofa with a thick, dogeared copy of War and Peace. It was a novel that June had tries and failed to read several thousand times before, but at more than one thousand pages it was the perfect project to distract her this weekend. Besides, it was a book that her mum had loved, and for that reason June had always felt guilty that she’d never managed to finish it.” (Chapter 5)

“People could hurt her, June had realized, in a way that a character in a novel never would. Her mum had implored her to put the books aside and make new friends, but June had made a friend once before, and look how that had ended. Instead, she vowed to keep her head down until she got to university, June told herself time and again; there would be more people there, and she would find like-minded friends. Until then, she had Lizzy Bennet and Jo March to keep her company.” (Chapter 10)

“This is what annoys me most about this bloody council business. What these management consultants with their calculators and spreadsheets will never work out is that the library is about so much more than simply books. Libraries are like a net, there to catch those of us in danger of falling through the cracks. That’s what we’re really fighting to protect.” (Chapter 10)

“But here’s the thing—wherever I ended up, and however much trouble I was in, there was always a library. A place that was safe and warm and dry, where no one would judge me. Libraries were my only light in some very dark times. And so when the council threatened this place, if felt like a threat to every library I’ve ever sought sanctuary in—an attack on every librarian who had ever come to my aid. And I think that’s why these people are here today. As Mrs. Bransworth said, this protest isn’t just for Chalcot. It’s for all the libraries out there.” (Chapter 23)

Books mentioned:

• Watership Down – Richard Adams
• Little Women – Louisa May Alcott
• The Handmaid’s Tale – Margaret Atwood
• Pride and Prejudice – Jane Austen
• Sense and Sensibility – Jane Austen
• Pride and Prejudice and Zombies – Jane Austen & Seth Grahame-Smith
• Mary Berry’s Baking Bible – Mary Berry
• Jane Eyre – Charlotte Brontë
• The Secret Garden – Frances Hodgson Burnett
• Breakfast at Tiffany’s – Truman Capote
• The Very Hungry Caterpillar – Eric Carle
• How to Stop Worrying and Start Living – Dale Carnegie
• Alice’s Adventures in Wonderland – Lewis Carroll
• A Hazard of Hearts – Barbara Cartland
• The 5 Love Languages – Gary Chapman
• Charlie and the Chocolate Factory – Roald Dahl
• James and the Giant Peach – Roald Dahl
• Matilda – Roald Dahl
• Great Expectations – Charles Dickens
• Oliver Twist – Charles Dickens
• The Gruffalo – Julia Donaldson
• Rebecca – Daphne du Maurier
• The Great Gatsby – F. Scott Fitzgerald
• Harriet the Spy – Louise Fitzhugh
• Gone Girl – Gillian Flynn
• Now What? 90 Days to a New Life Direction – Laura Berman Fortgang
• Cold Comfort Farm – Stella Gibbons
• Lord of the Flies – William Golding
• Tess of the D’Urbervilles – Thomas Hardy
• Remains of the Day – Kazuo Ishiguro
• Fifty Shades of Gray – E.L. James
• The Graveyard Apartment – Mariko Koike
• The Life-Changing Magic of Tidying Up – Marie Kondo
• How to Eat – Nigella Lawson
• How to Make Anyone Fall in Love with You – Leil Lowndes
• Wolf Hall – Hilary Mantel
• A Game of Thrones – George R.R. Martin
• One Hundred Years of Solitude – Gabriel García Márquez
• The House at Pooh Corner – A.A. Milne
• The Worst Witch – Jill Murphy
• Sweet Valley High – Francene Pascal
• The Tale of Peter Rabbit – Beatrix Potter
• Discworld – Terry Pratchett
• His Dark Materials – Phillip Pullman
• Harry Potter – J.K. Rowling
• Catcher in the Rye – J.D. Salinger
• Hamlet – William Shakespeare
• Frankenstein – Mary Wollstonecraft Shelley
• The Hobbit – J.R.R. Tolkien
• War and Peace – Leo Tolstoy
• The Librarian – Salley Vickers
• Spanish for Dummies – Susan Wald
• Charlotte’s Web – E.B. White
• Mrs. Dalloway – Virginia Woolf
• A Little Life – Hanya Yanagihara