"It was like love at first sight. I don't remember anything very specific, aside from a certainty, a wonder so deep it was like a stupor: I had found the place I had always been looking for, without realizing it, without even knowing it existed."

"Everyone knows that we continue to see the light of distant stars long after they are dead. But we never think about stars just born. If we can still see the sparkle of dead stars, there are suns whose light we don't yet see, and yet they are there, blazing in the darkness, completely imperceptible."

I was surprised by this book! I was mostly taken in by the title (hello? Can anyone say dream vacation?) and by the copy on the back of the book: 

"The library at Mont Sait-Michel was once known as the City of Books. It is there, within the grey walls of its monastery, in the fifteenth century, that a portrait painter grieving the sudden death of the woman he loved finds refuge. And it's there, between the sea and the sky, five centuries later, that a novelist tries to find her words again. They meet in the pages of a notebook left out in the rain."

But then after just the first paragraph, I said out loud: oh, this is going to be good. And it was! It had a certain intellect that I wasn't expecting but absolutely enjoyed. I love Mont Saint-Michel, it's one of my favorite places in France, so I could absolutely and instantly connect with the novelist. Learning the history of that island, the uncommon meanings behind common words, the beauty of what was being described - the book lover in me couldn't help but agree with each passage describing the importance of books. This is a short book, only 147 pages, but I thought it was the perfect length. 

Rather than tell one story from beginning to end, I feel that The Island of Books began in the middle and ended before we reached the end. It wasn't meant to contain an entire story, but rather to look in on the lives of two people - on days and weeks that do not contain their existence in entirety but just a snippet of it. We had a little background information, a couple flashbacks, but don't we have those on a day to day basis as well? It was as if, by opening the book, we opened the shutters for a short time and then they were closed again - although we can't see it, life continues on the other side of the glass.

The Island of Books is a unique read but a delightful one. It's the perfect book to take on vacation with you and read whenever you get the chance.

p.s. There was absolutely no language in this book. It is insinuated that our painter and his lover are intimate, but nothing is described. Pretty squeaky clean!