{"id":676,"date":"2024-09-08T09:36:22","date_gmt":"2024-09-08T09:36:22","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/harrisonwein.com\/blog\/?p=676"},"modified":"2024-09-08T09:37:46","modified_gmt":"2024-09-08T09:37:46","slug":"a-breezy-tale-about-the-meaning-of-life","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/harrisonwein.com\/blog\/2024\/09\/08\/a-breezy-tale-about-the-meaning-of-life\/","title":{"rendered":"A breezy tale about death and finding meaning"},"content":{"rendered":"
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<\/a>The Storied Life of A.J. Fikry<\/a> by Gabrielle Zevin<\/a>

My rating: 3.5 of 5 stars<\/a>


The Storied Life of A.J. Fikry<\/a> may be the breeziest book I’ve ever read about dealing with tragedy and finding meaning in life. A.J. Fikry is a curmudgeon whose wife has died and whose bookstore, which they had opened together on the small New England island where she grew up, is struggling. Gabrielle Zevin<\/a> details the chance occurrences and spontaneous decisions that enable Fikry to build a fulfilling new life and create a thriving bookstore at the center of the community.

This charming, whimsical book is a fun, quick read, as if John Irving<\/a> had set out to write a contemporary Silas Marner<\/a>. Zevin name-drops both of these in the course of this short novel, along with a slew of other literary references. It’s a smooth ride considering all the death and tragedy it depicts, and by then end, everything wraps up in a sad, somewhat sappy bow. The book isn’t marketed as a young adult book, but it’s very much written like one. Zevin is more focused on making a tribute to the importance of books and reading than on delving into the characters and situations she depicts. I enjoyed it, but would have preferred a little more nuance and depth given the characters and setup.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

The Storied Life of A.J. Fikry by Gabrielle Zevin My rating: 3.5 of 5 stars The Storied Life of A.J. Fikry may be the breeziest book I’ve ever read about dealing with tragedy and finding meaning in life. A.J. Fikry is a curmudgeon whose wife has died and whose bookstore, which they had opened together […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"advanced_seo_description":"","jetpack_seo_html_title":"","jetpack_seo_noindex":false,"jetpack_post_was_ever_published":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_access":"","_jetpack_dont_email_post_to_subs":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_tier_id":0,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paywalled_content":false,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":"","jetpack_publicize_message":"","jetpack_publicize_feature_enabled":true,"jetpack_social_post_already_shared":true,"jetpack_social_options":{"image_generator_settings":{"template":"highway","default_image_id":0,"font":"","enabled":false},"version":2}},"categories":[7],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-676","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-reviews"],"jetpack_publicize_connections":[],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"","jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"jetpack_shortlink":"https:\/\/wp.me\/paRPpr-aU","jetpack_likes_enabled":true,"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/harrisonwein.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/676","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/harrisonwein.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/harrisonwein.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/harrisonwein.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/harrisonwein.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=676"}],"version-history":[{"count":2,"href":"https:\/\/harrisonwein.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/676\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":679,"href":"https:\/\/harrisonwein.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/676\/revisions\/679"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/harrisonwein.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=676"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/harrisonwein.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=676"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/harrisonwein.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=676"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}