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Bob Comet is a retired librarian passing his solitary days surrounded by books and small comforts in a mint-colored house in Portland, Oregon. One morning on his daily walk he encounters a confused elderly woman lost in a market and returns her to the senior center that is her home. Hoping to fill the void he’s known since retiring, he begins volunteering at the center. Here, as a community of strange peers gathers around Bob, and following a happenstance brush with a painful complication from his past, the events of his life and the details of his character are revealed.

Behind Bob Comet’s straight-man facade is the story of an unhappy child’s runaway adventure during the last days of the Second World War, of true love won and stolen away, of the purpose and pride found in the librarian’s vocation, and of the pleasures of a life lived to the side of the masses. Bob’s experiences are imbued with melancholy but also a bright, sustained comedy; he has a talent for locating bizarre and outsize players to welcome onto the stage of his life.

**SPOILER ALERT**

This book isn’t my usual genre, but for some reason I’ve loved reading books with older (old enough to be my parents) characters, so I decided to try The Librarianist. I hoped it would fit in with books like A Man Called Ove and The Reluctant Fortune Teller.

It quickly pulled me into Bob’s story, and once we found out Chip was Connie, I couldn’t wait to find out what would happen! But then we went back in time to when Bob met Connie, and we had to watch as Connie and Ethan betrayed and left Bob. That was hard to read, so I was excited to jump back to the future to see how retired Bob and Connie interacted. Instead, we went back in time even further to meet a bunch of characters who didn’t really impact Bob’s life overall. And when we finally went back to retired Bob and Connie, nothing happened. All of that setup for no interaction or resolution.

This is one of the things I dislike about split timeline novels–I wanted to read the story of retired Bob, but most of the story took place in the past, so it was more historical novel than anything else. And after spending so much time talking about Connie and Ethan, I expected the Bob and Connie reunion to be the climax of the story.

I sort of agree with the book’s description as melancholy with bright comedy, but it’s a confusing life story that didn’t seem to have much of a focus. I love how the book pulled me in, but the second half didn’t meet the expectations set by the first half.

Rated PG-13.

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For more books with older male protagonists, try:

A Man Called Ove by Fredrik Backman
The Reluctant Fortune-Teller by Keziah Frost