The Giver of Stars by Jojo Moyes

Amy    

historical fiction

British Alice and American Bennett meet while Bennett is touring England in the late 1930s, they fall in love and get married, and move to Bennett’s home in Kentucky. Alice is bored and dissatisfied in Bennett’s home and decides to accept an opportunity to be a traveling packhorse librarian, delivering books to far flung homes in the mountains, in order to get out of the house and have something to do.  As a librarian, she develops friendships and grows to love the Kentucky outdoors.

While it’s not a bad novel, it’s a disappointing Jojo Moyes novel.   There is no humor in this story.  It’s just a straight up historical novel but not an amazing example.  In fact, it had a couple factors I didn’t like at all.  One was the tragic downturn of the story around the 2/3 mark that kept the novel depressing and uncomfortable until the very end.  The other was the fact that the main character, Alice’s, solution to her situation with her husband was obvious (and, frankly, unfathomable) early in the novel but the characters never figured it out until the last few pages and, therefore, suffered needlessly throughout the story.  The happy ending was insufficient to make the duration of the suffering worth it for me.   Much of the story had a lot of heart and even made me tear up at one point. But it was just alright. I appreciated learning about the packhorse librarians of the time. Unfortunately, when the best part of a historical fiction novel is the history, that means that the fictional storyline is lacking. Also, the book title, The Giver of Stars, was weak. I recognize its source but it doesn’t represent the novel at all.

I’m going ahead and giving it 3 stars even though I’m strongly leaning towards 2-1/2 because my disappointment weighs on me.  But, if this novel had not been authored by Moyes, from whom I expected more, I probably would have given it a solid 3 stars.

I would also like to let my opinions be heard regarding the accusations of another author who claims that Moyes stole some of her story ideas.  The accusations and facts are detailed in this article: https://www.buzzfeednews.com/article/tomiobaro/jojo-moyes-the-giver-of-stars-kim-richardson-bookwoman-of

I think Richardson’s claims are ridiculous.  I cannot tell you how many novels I’ve read with similar plot points.  The things that are similar in these two novels are not so inconceivable to have been coincidences.  The plot points which Richardson feels are too similar are story lines that I can see anyone coming up with when trying to build a full novel around historical events in this specific time and place.  Of course there’s going to be an attack in the mountains to add some excitement and drama.  And many authors nowadays are trying to incorporate a diverse cast of characters, so it’s not far fetched that both authors would insert women of color in their fictional accounts even when there were no women of color documented factually.  Besides, Jojo is a very successful author, has no reason to need to steal ideas, and did not plagiarize actual written sentences.  To me, I feel that Richardson, on the other hand, is simply disappointed that another author wrote a story about Kentucky packhorse librarians, thereby taking some of her perceived glory.  Too bad, so sad, I say.  I attended a discussion with Jojo Moyes when she discussed how she had come up with the idea of writing about this period from a magazine article published a few years ago.  I wouldn’t be surprised if Richardson read the same article and her idea was ignited at the same time.  Anyway, I think The Giver of Stars’ only problem is that it’s not all that terrific.