First Book of the Year... 2025!

Happy New Year! AND Happy New Book! Every year for the past 11 years, Sheila at Book Journey has hosted First Book of the Year. It's where readers every year share the book they are going to start their year off with. My pick this year is Lula Dean's Little Library of Banned Books by Kirsten Miller. 

 I love the premise of this book... Someone switches all the books in a little library of "wholesome" reading with banned books. But to cover up the switch, the person replaces the "wholesome" book with the banned book and leaves the "wholesome" book jacket, so that the book cover is not what the book actually is.... 

BUT, as I started to read this book, there was so much foul language that I had to put it down. I'm no prude - it just didn't seem it was really necessary. I'm hoping that the beginning of the book is just setting up the story and that we can leave that behind and get to the drama of the banned book switch. Here's the publisher's blurb...

Beverly Underwood and her arch enemy, Lula Dean, live in the tiny town of Troy, Georgia, where they were born and raised. Now Beverly is on the school board, and Lula has become a local celebrity by embarking on mission to rid the public libraries of all inappropriate books—none of which she’s actually read. To replace the “pornographic” books she’s challenged at the local public library, Lula starts her own lending library in front of her home: a cute wooden hutch with glass doors and neat rows of the worthy literature that she’s sure the town’s readers need.

What Lula doesn’t know is that a local troublemaker has stolen her wholesome books, removed their dust jackets, and restocked Lula’s library with banned books: literary classics, gay romances, Black history, witchy spell books, Judy Blume novels, and more. One by one, neighbors who borrow books from Lula Dean’s library find their lives changed in unexpected ways. Finally, one of Lula Dean’s enemies discovers the library and decides to turn the tables on her, just as Lula and Beverly are running against each other to replace the town’s disgraced mayor.

That’s when all the townspeople who’ve been borrowing from Lula’s library begin to reveal themselves. That's when the showdown that’s been brewing between Beverly and Lula will roil the whole town...and change it forever.

This book has gotten a lot of great buzz, which is the reason I picked it. So, I'm hoping for a good read. This is also my first library book of the year (or actually library ebook of the year). 

Do you have a book pick for First Book of the Year?

Have you read this one yet? It was published this past summer, June 2024, by William Morrow. Stay tuned for a review...

Happy Reading... Suzanne