Battle Of The Bookstores by Ali Brady | Audiobook Review

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Rivalry and romance spark when two bookstore managers who are opposites in every way find themselves competing for the same promotion.

Despite managing bookstores on the same Boston street, Josie Klein and Ryan Lawson have never interacted much—Josie’s store focuses on serious literature, and Ryan’s sells romance only. But when the new owner of both stores decides to combine them, the two are thrust into direct competition. Only one manager will be left standing, decided by who turns the most profit over the summer.

Efficient and detail-oriented Josie instantly clashes with easygoing and disorganized Ryan. Their competing events and contrasting styles lead to more than just frustration—the sparks between them might just set the whole store on fire. Their only solace during this chaos is the friendship they’ve each struck up with an anonymous friend in an online book forum. Little do they know they’re actually chatting with each other.

As their rivalry heats up in real life, their online relationship grows, and when the walls between their stores come tumbling down, Josie and Ryan realize not all’s fair in love and war. And maybe, if they’re lucky, happily ever afters aren’t just for the books.

Why Did I Listen To Battle Of The Bookstores by Ali Brady?

Battle Of The Bookstores by Ali Brady has a few concepts that I love — it is about people who love books who work at bookstores, they are rivals, and there is a competition involved. I love those kinds of elements. There is just something about getting sucked into a good contemporary romance audiobook as you are going about the mundane – driving to work, folding laundry, staring at Excel pivot charts. This book looks all cute, however there are certainly some steamy, spicy scenes.

What’s The Story Here?

Ali Brady’s Battle Of The Bookstores follows Josie Klein who manages Tabula Inscripta which is a bookstore focused on literary fiction and highbrow literature and Ryan Lawson who manages Happy Endings, a romance themed bookstore. The two stores are on the same Boston street. The two managers should interact consistently right? They don’t. In fact, Josie doesn’t even like what she’s seen of Ryan, assuming he is a bro with the landlord of the stores they both manage.

Speaking of, the landlord/owner decides that there’s no need for there to be two bookstores on his payroll. He’s going to combine the two stores into one space. There only needs to be one manager. How will this be decided? The store that has the most profit within a specific timeframe will be the winner and that person will go on to manage to the new store. And so, the rivalry begins. Josie finds herself winding down by going on a forum aimed at booksellers. She can be herself. She also finds herself in a flirtation with a man on that forum. Oh, and I think you can guess who it is. There were definitely echoes of You’ve Got Mail.

How Did I Like Battle Of The Bookstores?

As expected, Ali Brady’s Battle of The Bookstores is super cute. I liked the rivals to friends to lovers aspect of Ryan and Josie’s relationship. Ryan is not at all what I had expected. He genuinely loves romance books and has created a safe space for the people who enjoy them as well. He also is someone who has a learning disability. His family, by the way, is great. I also enjoyed Josie — she dropped out of college. She’s close with her sister. She has a dim view of romance due to some issues with her mom. There is one red flag about Josie and that is one of her favorite books is The Fountainhead by Ayn Rand. I liked that she gave commercial fiction a chance because of the guy she talks to on the forum. The fact that they shared books and read them for each other was quite adorable.

How’s The Narration?

The audiobook of Battle Of The Bookstores has DUAL NARRATION! I love when books that have two main character point of view perspectives do this. The Josie chapters are narrated by Karissa Vacker. The Ryan chapters are narrated by Brandon Francis. The alternating narration kept my interested. I felt both narrators embodied the characters really well. The audiobook is 9 hours and 33 minutes, I did listen to it sped up to about 1.75-2x depending upon my mood. This was a great listen for the start of my summer.

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April (Books&Wine)

April is in her 30s and created Good Books And Good Wine. She works for a non-profit. April always has a book on hand. In her free time she can be found binge watching The Office with her husband and toddler, spending way too much time on Pinterest or exploring her neighborhood.

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