The Words Between Us by Erin Bartels

Peter reaches out to new girl in town Robin by giving her his deceased mother's books. As repayment, she writes him a poem about the book. Robin slowly allows Peter into her heart.

How can a book lover not love a story about books bonding people? Erin Bartel's novel The Words Between Us is filled with books--titles and authors, well-read dusty tomes and mass-market paperbacks--and conversations about books.

But, for Robin, books became an escape from the ugly truths of life, building a wall between her and the world.

"The shelf is filled with all but one of the books Peter had given me when I was a girl, each one a bottle containing some intoxicating fictitious liquor that promises to take me away from this incomprehensible chaos of real life and into a carefully plotted story.[...] Isn't there some literary cocktail that will help me escape?"~from The Words Between Us by Erin Bartels

At once point in her young life, Robin went so far as to stop talking, further constructing a protective shell. What drove a teenager to such extremes?

Robin's parents are both in prison and she cannot forgive them for abandoning her and cannot tolerate their crimes. Uprooted from her Amherst, MA, home to live with a grandmother in Michigan, she tries to rewrite her past with a new name and identity, lies that don't hold up. She is chained to her parent's legacy of notoriety.

Told in two timelines, the adult Robin watching her bookstore slide into bankruptcy and her backstory as a teenager, the novel explores themes of anger and forgiveness. There is romance and drama and friendship and threat and a reversal of everything Robin thought was true. Robin's foil is Sarah, a large-hearted girl who carries secret guilt under her party-girl persona.

The novel is set in a fictional small town on the Saginaw River in Michigan divided by a river. There is a journey that touches on all the Great Lakes, starting at Niagara Falls and ending on the sand dunes of Grand Marias on Lake Superior. The story concludes on Isle Royale, a National Park in Lake Superior. I loved all the Michigan mentions, including the Grand Rapids Art Prize and the carousel in the Van Andel Public Museum.

Grand Marias, MI on Lake Superior

I picked up on nods to Jane Austen. Robin's imagination concocts a wild story about Peter's father who later sends her out of his home--shades of Northanger Abbey! And there is Persuasion's wish-fulfillment hope for second chances.

Some aspects of the plot feel improbable, but most readers will be too involved with Robin to mind. The faith talk addresses a universal truth, and the romance is chaste.

Overall, I enjoyed reading The Words Between Us. It will appeal to a wide audience of readers: those who like appealing characters struggling with difficulties, young adult fiction readers, women's fiction, Christian fiction, and who love the current trend of bookish characters.

Sunset on Lake Superior

The Words Between us is Erin Bartels sophomore book; her first book was We Hope For Better Things; read my review here.

"I know why some books live on forever while others struggle for breath, forgotten on shelves and in basements...they might have told rollicking good tales and sketched out characters who were fun to follow for four hundred pages, but they hadn't bled. They hadn't cut themselves open and given up a part of themselves...they hadn't lost anything in the writing."~from The Words Between Us by Erin Bartels

I received access to a free egalley by the publisher through NetGalley. My review is fair and unbiased.

Find a reading group guide at
 http://bakerpublishinggroup.com/books/the-words-between-us/391430

The Words Between Us
by Erin Bartels
Revell
Available Now/Sept 2019
Paperback ISBN9780800734923
E-Book ISBN9781493419302
$15.99