The Bookish Life of Nina Hill by Abbi WaxmanMy rating: 4 of 5 stars
There have been a recent spate of contemporary novels' predominantly romances, in which one of the protagonists is, in layman's terms, somewhere on the autism spectrum. Whilst I have enjoyed these novels I did feel like it was the latest 'thing' that authors were using to make their novels different, so while I liked the blurb for this book I was also kind of dreading that jump on the bandwagon vibe. Luckily I was wrong.
Nina Hill might be more devoted to her carefully scheduled life of books, the bookshop where she works, her quiz team and her cat Phil but she has friends, it's just that as an only child she values her solitude. Okay, not everyone would schedule "nothing" as an actual activity once a week which cannot be missed, not even say for a date with a hot guy, but I think that just makes her a little eccentric.
Nina's quiz team "Book 'Em Danno"'s greatest rivals are "You're A Quizzard, Harry", Nina loathes (but also fancies) the rival team's captain, a big athletic looking guy who knows more about sports than Nina's team. Tom, her quizzing nemesis, turns out to be Nina's opposite, a man who rarely makes a plan but he also has the same sense of humour, likes the same nerdy films and seems really sweet, even if he doesn't read books.
Then Nina discovers that she is not an only child. Her mysterious father turns out to have been married three times (as well as having a short-lived affair with Nina's mother) and she now has half-siblings ranging in age from fifty-nine to ten, nephews, nieces, great nieces and great nephews. She has also inherited something from her father, who turns out to have been very wealthy, and so parts of her new family worry that she is a gold-digger.
This was sweet, funny and relatable, I love books and quizzes (although I don't pretend to the sort of in-depth knowledge that Nina possesses) and my idea of heaven is scheduling reading time. If you are looking for a quirky romance I can highly recommend this novel.
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