Battle of the Bookstores

The titular “battle” between Josie and Ryan dramatizes the divide between “serious” literary fiction and “commercial” genres like romance. Josie and Ryan, and by extension their respective bookstores, embody these conflicting value systems. Early in the story, Josie slips into dismissive language when she first meets Ryan, saying “You just sell romance” (7). While she doesn’t intend this as an insult, it does reveal the literary hierarchy she’s internalized. Similarly, Ryan perceives Josie’s bookstore as “a bleak wasteland of existential dread” (8), equating literary seriousness with pessimism and boredom. Both sides initially rely on reductive caricatures of the other, showing how artificial divides between genres reinforce prejudices and stand in the way of understanding.

Brady complicates this binary by showing how genres can overlap and emphasizing that reading experiences are inherently subjective. Novels categorized as “literary” often include elements common to one or more “commercial” genres, including romance, science fiction, and mystery. When a customer asks Ryan to help him find a gift for his romance-loving girlfriend, Ryan recommends Ann Patchett’s Tom Lake as a literary novel that partakes of romance tropes. In one discussion, Ryan and Josie debate whether a title they’ve both read and enjoyed, Writers & Lovers, can be considered both literary and romance. Ryan’s answer was “one hundred percent unequivocally yes” (19). This challenges the false dichotomy between “serious” and “commercial” literature, showing that genres can blend and enrich one another.

Other moments in the novel reinforce the subjectivity of taste: “What one person thinks is pure drivel is another’s literary masterpiece” (19). Here, Ali Brady gestures toward the arbitrariness of elitist standards, later echoing how publishing itself is “throwing spaghetti at the wall” to see what sticks (86). Since art is inherently subjective, judgments about artistic merit are as likely to reflect the tastes and assumptions of their time as any value intrinsic to the work. Many works dismissed as mere popular entertainment in their own time have come to be seen in later generations as great art.

The defense of romance throughout the novel further exposes the harmful effects of elitist thinking. Ryan directly challenges stereotypes when he asserts, “Just because we don’t cater to the ‘literary elite’ doesn’t mean we’re worthless or stupid or embarrassing” (77). At one point Ryan wonders if his employee Indira is dismissed by her MFA peers for working at a romance bookstore instead of at Josie’s, exemplifying the stigma surrounding genre fiction.

Josie’s eventual enjoyment in reading 11/22/63—a novel she admits is “not high literature” (95)—demonstrates her ability to embrace books outside her narrow window of interest and further challenges her literary elitism. Ultimately, the novel suggests that inclusivity, connection, and authenticity to human experiences matter far more than genre distinctions. When Josie attends Ryan’s book club, she finds herself surrounded by readers who are just as “book-obsessed” as she is, even if their favorites differ from hers (169). Just because they prefer to read romance doesn’t mean they can’t have intelligent, deep conversations about the stories they’re consuming. By the end, Josie openly admits her mistake to Ryan: “I was wrong. About your books. And about you” (207). This moment of humility dismantles the elitist divide that had governed much of her thinking, leading to a reconciliation in which both sides agree to be “more open minded to other genres” (317).