Amy Meyerson’s The Bookshop of Yesterdays starts off with Miranda Brooks, the perspective character, recounting her childhood relationship with her uncle Billy. He is a seismologist—one who studies earthquakes—and the owner of an independent bookshop called Prospero Books. Billy sets Miranda out on a series of scavenger hunts as his way of bonding with her, which he would do until her twelfth birthday. On that same night, Miranda overheard a fraction of a fight between her uncle and mom. “You’ve got some nerve, showing up in the middle of the night and blaming me,” she overheard her mother say. After this fight, her uncle completely disappeared from her life. Years later, Miranda is a 27 year-old history teacher working in Philadelphia when she receives The Tempest in the mail, and news that Billy had died. She goes back to Los Angeles for the funeral, and to figure out what exactly the book meant. This is where the story begins.
The parts I liked about the novel were the setting, the dramatic plot points, the way in which the mystery lets readers play along, and the romantic subplot. The parts that I enjoyed less were some of the ways in which characters behaved, and I had mixed feelings about a few of the relationships.
The story is as California as Blink-182. The setting descriptions of California are both detailed and nostalgic. Miranda spends her time at a nice spot where she oversees Pepperdine University, gathering her thoughts at the beach, or rooting for The Dodgers. She immersed me further into the story when I recognized specific street directions to different LA locations. In an interview on the KUCI podcast, “Writers on Writing,” Meyerson said she decided to make Billy a seismologist in order to keep up with the Californian themes of the novel. This aspect gave me a strong sense of familiarity. Although, I believe a reader who is not too familiar with California may find this aspect as more of a learning experience than a nostalgic one.
The author points out in that same podcast that Miranda is a history teacher, but she knows so little about her own history. Her family told her very little about their past and she never probes them before the scavenger hunt begins. Because of this, Miranda is as clueless as the readers, which makes the mystery more fun to solve alongside her. Every time a new clue is revealed, it was fun to try and guess what book it was leading her to—even though I was only able to guess one of them. I am sure those who are more well-read than I am would have fun with all these literary references. The reveals that each clue brought were also exciting beyond the book choices. I am avoiding revealing any spoilers, but much of her family history is very surprising and I had no way of predicting it. Although, perhaps this is because I have not read The Tempest, which Meyerson said was the inspiration behind Miranda’s history. The scavenger hunt was fun overall, and all the reveals were the backbone of this novel!
For reference, I typically hate romantic subplots because they tend to be shallow and thrown in for no good reason, but the one in this novel was one of the reasons I picked up the book every night. Her boyfriend Jay is not who I am referring to because I found him to be very boring and I did not like their relationship. He was one of the parts that I liked less about the book, but she eventually gets in a fight with him and ends up showing interest in someone that she works with at the bookstore. I liked it because the descriptions of her crush on this guy felt realistic and fun. And, again, I did not like her boyfriend at all, so her thinking about cheating on him did not bring me any discomfort—perhaps it would to other readers. Some of the scenes between them were trope-y, but many of the scenes were either the fun sort of drama or cute in a subtle way.
The story being very plot-driven did have its flaws as some of the relationships were either lackluster or unnecessarily hostile. Her relationship with her childhood best friend Joanie was as lackluster as the one she had with her boyfriend. Although I liked Joanie more than Jay, she also did not have much character. Miranda’s relationship with her mother was homey and realistic for the most part, but there were parts when I could not pinpoint as to why Miranda felt the need to torture her like that. Most times, Miranda was angry at somebody, which was easy to understand why. However, she chose to tell her mother about finding the next clue, specifically because she knew it would hurt her. Miranda did not have a reason to do that and it made me uncomfortable reading that scene.
Overall, The Bookshop of Yesterdays by Amy Meyerson is a fun read, especially for Californians, well-read individuals, drama fans and mystery fans. I highly recommend it!