The Book Swap (#1,279) is Tessa Bickers' debut novel. It has an interesting concept: a couple meet and begin to establish a relationship through exchanging books in a community library drop in London. The underlining and notes in the margins reveal much about themselves, and lead to questions and suggestions to the other of which book to read next. That part of the book works really well and I did want to see what would come next here.
You can probably detect a big "But..." coming, and you'd be right. Erin and James, the two principals here have a previous history. That would also be fine, but that's also where the book bogs down. Erin can't get over things that happened twenty years ago and reacts to things in life by totally shutting down. Guilt, depression, self-loathing, you name it, Erin has it in spades. Frankly, it's depressing to spend time with her. James has problems of his own, and I think one of them is that he is so stuck on Erin.
Ms. Bickers never comes right out and says that both of these characters (and many others in this book!) suffer from various forms of mental illness and NEED! HELP! NOW!
I persevered on to the end, but I'm kind of sorry I did. Not for people in a fragile state.
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