3 Things We Love About The Book Swap By Tessa Bickers

Something about August makes us feel nostalgic. Maybe it’s remembering summer reading assignments of years past. Well, today, we’re highlighting Tessa Bicker’s debut novel, The Book Swap. And it takes us back to the classics!

Referencing classic novels like To Kill A Mockingbird and The Great Gatsby, two estranged best friends start an anonymous book exchange at a local free library. They write notes in the margins of their favorite books, analyzing each work while revealing the deepest parts of themselves. But they don’t expect their new pen pals to be their former best friends with a shared, painful past.

The Book Swap really hit home, giving us a lot of angst alongside some romance. Here are three things we love about The Book Swap by Tessa Bickers!

Book Overview: The Book Swap

Content Warnings: death, bullying, harassment, mention of suicide, mention of cancer, cheating, divorce, a parent with bipolar disorder

Summary: Still reeling from a recent tragedy, Erin Connolly knows she needs to start living but has no idea how. When she accidentally donates her favorite book—a heavily annotated copy of To Kill a Mockingbird containing a memento she can’t be without—to a local little community library, she’s devastated. But then the book turns up a week later, back in the library with fresh notes in the margins, along with an invitation in a copy of Great Expectations to meet her newfound pen pal.

A life-changing conversation, written only in the margins of beloved classic books, begins between Erin and her Mystery Man. Following each other through the pages of their favorite novels as the book exchange continues, they both begin to open up, falling into a friendship…and maybe something more. 

But Erin and her pen pal have a shared history that neither of them has guessed. Faced with painful reminders of the past—and the one person she swore never to forgive—Erin finds herself at a crossroads, one that could change her life forever.

Dual Points Of View

You already know we’d talk about the alternating perspectives in The Book Swap! We get Erin and James’s points of view, glimpses into their personal problems, and progress in the book swaps. It was lovely to see Erin and James find an escape through the books they unknowingly shared with each other. Even though there were times we wished we could tell each character how the other really felt about them. Neither Erin nor James ever had a clue, which had us scrambling to get to the end.

Picking Up Pieces

In a similar vein, we love how our knowledge of the whole story continued to build with each new book swap. We may have missed some fleeting details in the beginning or not caught on to things we weren’t supposed to know about until later. Everything was orchestrated so that readers would pick up pieces of the story until finally, we know how James lost Erin’s trust all those years ago. Or why Erin blames herself for not being there for Bonnie enough before she died. We love being clued in at the right time.

Everyone’s Connected

Erin and James have a complicated history, but many supporting characters add to the lore. From James’s casual hookups with Helena to the English teacher, Mr. Carter, everyone plays a role in the past and present (for better or worse). Bonnie’s memorials reunite our main characters every year, confronting them with some of the most traumatic memories of their lives. But by the end of The Book Swap, Erin and James figure out how they can finally move on from their grief and embrace the lives that were meant for them.

The Book Swap by Tessa Bickers comes out September 3rd, and you can preorder a copy of it here!

What do you think about The Book Swap? Did you enjoy this debut novel? Let us know on Twitter, Facebook, and Instagram!

Want to hear some of our audiobook recommendations? Here’s the latest!

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