Battle of the Bookstores

Josie thinks of her aversion to the romance genre as she and Georgia set up her store for tomorrow’s event—the Literary Collective, a book club to talk about a literary novel selection. Unlike romance, literary fiction is “gritty, raw, and complicated, like real human experiences. No guarantees, no tidy conclusions. No false hopes, either” (65). The sisters reminisce about their childhood, where they’d walk to the library and check out 15 books each that they’d then spend hours reading at home. Georgia mentions that their mother would also read for hours on end, but this only reminds Josie of how their mother would severely neglect them during these periods, leaving Josie to care for and feed both her and Georgia. Their mother would have a bad breakup, retreat into her romance books for days or weeks, then reemerge enamored with romance once again only to restart the cycle. Georgia mentions that their mother is dating someone who sounds nice, but Josie has heard this too many times before and doesn’t believe it will last. Unlike the character arcs seen in novels, she believes her mother will never change. That night, Josie messages RJ Reads asking if he reads for fun.