Get your copy here!

Violet Powell, a twenty-two-year-old from rural Abbott Falls, Maine, is being released from prison after serving twenty-two months for a drunk-driving crash that killed a local kindergarten teacher. Harriet Larson, a retired English teacher who runs the prison book club, is facing the unsettling prospect of an empty nest. Frank Daigle, a retired machinist, hasn’t yet come to grips with the complications of his marriage to the woman Violet killed.

When the three encounter each other one morning in a bookstore in Portland—Violet to buy the novel she was reading in the prison book club before her release, Harriet to choose the next title for the women who remain, and Frank to dispatch his duties as the store handyman—their lives begin to intersect in transformative ways.

How to Read a Book  is an unsparingly honest and profoundly hopeful story about letting go of guilt, seizing second chances, and the power of books to change our lives. With the heart, wit, grace, and depth of understanding that has characterized her work, Monica Wood illuminates the decisions that define a life and the kindnesses that make life worth living.

This book isn’t quite literary and it’s definitely not a romance, though it does have elements of both. At it’s heart, I believe it’s Violet’s story, as she brings Frank and Harriet together to make their own found family, but each of the characters experiences growth throughout the book.

A sweet story about forgiveness and growth, How to Read a Book includes prison culture, academia, and retirement in an easy-to-read book that (slowly) pulled me in but kept me reading until the end.

I would classify this as the PG-13 version of the Mitford series, with the same heart and growth but with some edgier topics.

As an Amazon Associate, I earn from qualifying purchases.

For other novels with mature characters, check out:

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