Beverly Underwood and her arch enemy, Lula Dean, live in the tiny town of Troy, Georgia, where they were born and raised. Now Beverly is on the school board, and Lula has become a local celebrity by embarking on mission to rid the public libraries of all inappropriate books—none of which she’s actually read. To replace the “pornographic” books she’s challenged at the local public library, Lula starts her own lending library in front of her home: a cute wooden hutch with glass doors and neat rows of the worthy literature that she’s sure the town’s readers need.
What Lula doesn’t know is that a local troublemaker has stolen her wholesome books, removed their dust jackets, and restocked Lula’s library with banned books: literary classics, gay romances, Black history, witchy spell books, Judy Blume novels, and more. One by one, neighbors who borrow books from Lula Dean’s library find their lives changed in unexpected ways. Finally, one of Lula Dean’s enemies discovers the library and decides to turn the tables on her, just as Lula and Beverly are running against each other to replace the town’s disgraced mayor.
That’s when all the townspeople who’ve been borrowing from Lula’s library begin to reveal themselves. That's when the showdown that’s been brewing between Beverly and Lula will roil the whole town...and change it forever.
Lula Dean's Little Library of Banned Books by Kirsten Miller will be published June 18, 2024. William Morrow provided an early galley for review.
Being a librarian, put library or banned books in a title and you have my attention. I was instantly curious about this upcoming release.
Firstly, each chapter is titled from an actual book title. It is a small touch that I can really appreciate. However, I quickly found that each chapter is sort of a vignette to focus on another resident and their dark behaviors that someone else, through the inspiration of banned books goes about trying to correct or compensate for. I get the concept that Miller is going for - it is all very topical for anyone who has been watching the news over the past half dozen years or so. However, for me, I found it got stale pretty quickly. I felt like I was scrolling through posts on social media with a quick stop at one before moving on to the next. I feel it was trying to hit too many areas rather than focus more tightly on a couple.
As a librarian, I am all for free expression and challenging the thoughts of intolerance, hatred and bigotry. Librarians are advocates of the "freedom to read" principal. I support that Miller's book wants to challenge all of these things and show a (fictional) town trying to be better thanks to the power of books. My concern is how her message will be received by patrons. Will it fan the flames rather then extinguish them? We shall see.
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