Rate: 4.5/5

Medium: AudioBook

Overview (No Spoilers): I’m finally back from our European adventure! We saw four different, beautiful libraries, (Czech National Library, Strahov Monastery Library, Austrian National Library, and the Melk Abbey Library) all of which were stunning, on our trip. However, note to self: if you finish a book prior to vacation, finish your blog regarding the book before you leave! With that being said let me preface how I first heard about Readers of Broken Wheel Recommend.

My first and current job, after receiving my Ph.D., is working for a startup company, which has a diagnosis for multiple sclerosis from a blood draw. Consequently, a large part of my job was interacting with patients and drawing their blood for our preclinical study. As you can imagine, the vast majority of my time was spent in a doctor’s waiting room waiting for the doctor to recruit patients at the end of their visit, which resulted in a LOT of sitting around. While I typically used this time answering any work related emails, eventually that gave way to reading. After befriending some of the other doctors in the office, one of the doctors encouraged me to pick up The Readers of Broken Wheel Recommend. The premise, a young woman who lived her life immersed in a book, breaks out of character to go visit her penpal in a tiny, Iowa town, wasn’t typically the subject I’m drawn to but I ended up connecting with the characters on several levels. Having been raised in a remote Michigan town that dies a little more with every recession, I was easily able to connect with the emotions of the inhabitants of Broken Wheel. Several of the families in the book sold their family farms, as did several of my classmates and family members. I loved reading and seeing the city through this European girl’s eyes, especially with the book originally being written in Swedish. I had to laugh several times at stereotypes within the book and wonder if the author purposely included it in the book or if the situations just found their way in as innocent stereotypes. Overall, Readers of Broken Wheel Recommend is a feel good book that any book lover should pick up. You’ll probably laugh out loud at the small town mentality and politics, in which your business is the town’s business, which Bivald perfectly captures. While the romances and ending are truly worth a good eye roll, honestly there’s nothing wrong with a cheesy ending every now and again.