The Banned Bookshop of Maggie Banks by Shauna Robinson

Reviewed by Sam!

What I drank prior: I said I’d get more than one review out of the state of the union drinking game and I WAS RIGHT!

Drunk Overview: ALRIGHTY. So Maggie Banks cant hold down a job. So her best friend being the bestest friend offered Maggie an opportunity to get out of her own way for a while and take over her bookstore while she was on materiality leave. turns out this small town is obsessed with this old guy who wrote some great American classic. This weirdo great grandson of the old guy has bought up struggling businesses and turned them in to shrines to this guy. Completely restricting the way they can run their businesses. The bookstore is struggling, so Maggie takes things in to her own hands and starts selling “non approved” books on the side. Things go from there… oh there’s a boy too.

Goodreads Overview:

I, Maggie Banks, solemnly swear to uphold the rules of Cobblestone Books.

If only, I, Maggie Banks, believed in following the rules.

When Maggie Banks arrives in Bell River to run her best friend’s struggling bookstore, she expects to sell bestsellers to her small-town clientele. But running a bookstore in a town with a famously bookish history isn’t easy. Bell River’s literary society insists on keeping the bookstore stuck in the past, and Maggie is banned from selling anything written this century. So, when a series of mishaps suddenly tip the bookstore toward ruin, Maggie will have to get creative to keep the shop afloat.

And in Maggie’s world, book rules are made to be broken.

To help save the store, Maggie starts an underground book club, running a series of events celebrating the books readers actually love. But keeping the club quiet, selling forbidden books, and dodging the literary society is nearly impossible. Especially when Maggie unearths a town secret that could upend everything.

Maggie will have to decide what’s more important: the books that formed a small town’s history, or the stories poised to change it all.

Spoiler-free Thoughts: I inhaled this book. Literally inhaled it in one sitting.

Characters: our main character Maggie is amazing. She’s fierce and independent and brilliant. She’s just a little lost, who hasn’t been there? I think she has a great mind and is super creative and really just wants what’s best for everyone. She also doesn’t really sit back and take the subtle (not so subtle) racism in her way. It’s great. Then there’s the bae. He’s quiet and shy and super cute. He’s a reader, but needs to be pushed out of his comfort zone and i love it. Their dynamic is amazing and I love it. The bad guy is truly a bad guy. Like, the best part of a villain is someone who thinks he is doing the right thing. Idk if he thinks he’s doing the right thing, but its certainly not evil for the sake of evil and i like that. I also love the companions that Maggie makes alonghte way. Particularly the curmudgeon old man.

Plot: So there are some slow parts and there is one bit where I wish she’d spoken to bae. She literally invited this guy’s favorite author and didn’t invite him and to me (and probably to all of us people in the booknet corner of the internet) that’s unforgivable. How dare.

Writing Style: there are very few books i will inhale in one sitting. So take that how you wil;

World Building: This is set in a town just outside the DC area, so much so they talk about DC neighborhoods and it was pretty cool.

What to pair it with: This is a daiquiri. Not one of those frozen ones with an umbrella, I’m talking the one that’s like all liquor.

Rating: 4/5 shots

Until next time, we remain forever drunkenly yours,
Sam