The Dewey Decimal System of Love by Josephine Carr

Of a love-crazed librarian, stink bombs, sexy conductors, and everything else in the kitchen sink. 

About The Dewey Decimal System of Love by Josephine Carr: Behind a french twist and sensible clothes, forty-year-old librarian Alison Sheffield hides an extravagant nature. But after last night, even her most proper attire can't disguise the signs-the pink cheeks, the extra-poufy hair, the bounce in her step. Alison Sheffield is in love. The heart-palpitating, nausea-inducing, silly, inexplicable, absurd and pointless kind of love found in a romance novel. And for once in her life, what Alison needs to know she can't find in any reference book-she can only live it...

My thoughts 

I swear that the librarian chuckled when she saw that I checked The Dewey Decimal System of Love out. An omen of things to come?

The book in one sentence: Librarian Ally Sheffield, celibate for 15 years, suddenly falls head over heels for a married orchestra conductor and stops at nothing to catch him.

I borrowed this because I saw one of my Bookmooch friends have it up for mooching. Strike one. Then that memory of the chuckling librarian. Strike two.

This is a horrible book (I don't even know why I bothered to finish it (though I sort of flipped through it in a few hours). I hated it because:

1. The story is nonsense. There are, among other things, stink bombs, homeless men, a mystery, a romance, a handsome and mysterious man, a wife who wants to kill her husband, a best friend who is a stay-at-home mom, a miraculous transformation from ugly duckling to princess. Oh, and did I mention this involves a librarian? To boot, a librarian who "looks half her age of forty" (oh, goody for her!)
2. The librarian character is a total stereotype. Ally has been celibate for 15 years. She wears high-necked non-revealing clothing. She wears her hair up. Yes, she wears glasses. Ho-hum.
3. The use of the Dewey Decimal System has little to contribute to the story. So what if Ally has memorized the system? Gah, she's a librarian! I actually was expecting some delightful twist to the use of this device but nada.

Verdict: Thank goodness this book is over. Thank goodness it's out of the house.

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