The Bookshop and the Barbarian: A Cozy Fantasy Novel

I genuinely love the fact that this book speaks directly to the reader and gets meta in a comedic way. From the first chapter I was already enjoying the humour and the characters. This book calls me out on my thinking and I love it. First about the pig wagon and then about the jolly guardsman, this went on to the end. Everyone keeps saying they wish they had something to pass the time but when she tries to mention the bookshop they always interrupt her and it's so funny. Love reading the narrators part so witty and it keeps me reading - can you tell the narrator is my favorite part of this book? I love him. Love the chapter names being part of jokes. Love the way the giant - Asteria speaks. AHHH it's interactive!! With quizzes in it?? To test if I was paying attention?? I was just saying that I wanted to do quizzes on books after I've read them to see if I actually obtained that information and this book did it for me! I love me an interactive experience, this is my first one! It was great even though it was rare. I deeply enjoy the narrator telling us what to remember and I enjoy how all the small details were wrapped up in the end. Nothing left unanswered - except one thing but that thing is answered in it's own way (this is A SPOILER - the thing is the women who's hopping through worlds, it's another of her books she referenced in this by making her hop into this world) The narrator reminds me of the narrator from the Stanley parable. Love love love. The narrator also reminds me of a series of unfortunate events. Love. Can you tell i love our narrator? The meta parts (most parts) in this book are AMAZING. I love being spoken to directly. I love that the narrator knew everything and you should check out the post the author made on reddit about this book it's like a Q&A! Lmao this book called out other book tropes and it mentioned legends and lattes which I thought this book was similar to! Love. This is not the type of book you read if you want something to think on for a long time. This isn't the type of book you read when you want to have a discussion on it. This isn't the type of book you read when you want to feel any emotions other than COZY, but it's not meant to do those things. This is the type of book you read when you want to get away from your world for a little while. The type of book that helps your escape while providing a safe place to go. This book is meant to be read just for the sake of feeling warm, fuzzy and cozy. It's meant for you to enjoy it and return back to life when you're done, no thoughts just reading. It's amazing at exactly what it's meant to do and that's why it gets a 5 stars even though it doesn't have a plot like "Legends and Lattes" or "The house in the cerulean sea" but it did have ONE thing that pulled on my anxiety. I thought I wasn't enjoying it that much because I didn't feel many things towards it other then comfort and a chuckles but that's the point, to get away from complicated emotions and focus on just plain old comfort. Safety. And it's damn good at its aim. Mission accomplished. I've never read a book like this one and it truly is one of my favourites.