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The description of The Bookshop led me to expect something along the lines of Shirley Jackson's short story "The Summer People," in which a couple who have a summer cottage decide one year not to leave at summer's end; this breach in the routine turns the town against them. So I had high hopes.
But The Bookshop didn't match my expectations of reading about a town rejecting someone who steps out of the role they've assigned to her; Florence seems to be bedeviled mainly by a single malevolent person--Violet--and the residents seem to be mostly bystanders, with no particular animus toward Florence, or toward having a bookshop.
I did think there was some elegant language, but I want more than nice turns of phrase; I want a story. There wasn't much of one here; this is a book I would not have wasted ten minutes thinking about but for the fact of needing to post something about it for the book club.
I wasn't invested in Florence; she seemed nice enough, earnest but ineffectual. She had no passion for books--or for anything! Her "battle" with Violet was a complete mismatch--and yet I felt little sympathy for her as the underdog.
Christine would have been a much more interesting POV character. I don't see that anyone commented yet on the use of the book Lolita, but Christine and Lolita were about the same age.
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