This book was a tricky one for me. I have this personal hang up about novels, I lose interest and become annoyed when the characters are just too unique, quirky, eccentric, and twee. Due to this preference I couldn’t get farther than 25% of the way through The Summer That Melted Everything by Tiffany McDaniel. When every single character is a Russian speaking golden boy, a three-foot-tall vegetarian named Elohim, or a small town lawyer named Autopsy Bliss who puts an ad in the newspaper addressed to Satan, it’s hard for me to care about. It turns characters I’m supposed to connect with in some way into cartoons.

I was bit worried A.J. Fikry was going to veer into that territory. In the end it did not, not for me personally, but it did tap dance right on the edge of that line (Madame Olenska, looking at you). While the characters and setting were somewhat unbelievable, it ultimately didn’t spoil the story for me the way some other novels have done.

The most enjoyable parts of the book were seeing the world through A.J. Fikry’s grouchy, sardonic, well read, eyes. It was also a pleasure to watch this grumbling bookseller who judges people exclusively based on their reading tastes open up again and embrace the world. The passages about his illness and death were just heartbreaking and extremely well done. Overall this was a pleasant, twisty little story about the power and beauty of books and reading.