Short and sweet. Bringing together a love story, a Silas Marner adaptation, and a bit of a mystery novel. Mostly it’s a love song to books and bookstores. Though formally much different than Tomorrow and Tomorrow and Tomorrow, this novel also concerns itself with the long arc of changing relationships between people and things. I enjoyed the titular curmudgeon as a character and admired how Zevin made him sympathetic. One never feels particularly close to Fikry. In its comic brevity, the novel seems to hold its characters slightly at arm’s length. There’s something about the present tense narrative that feels slightly distancing. We don’t get quite enough of Fikry’s past to feel like we know him, though it works. I was moved by the ending.