Ciska's Book Chest

Chicago-based writer Rebecca Makkai has written various short fiction stories for which she has been awarded with the Best American Short Stories for 4 consecutive years since 2008. The Borrower is her first novel. http://rebeccamakkai.com/The Borrower tells the story of Ian Drake and Lucy Hull. Lucy is a young children's librarian in the library of the town of Hannibal. 10 year old Ian is a regular visitor and addicted to books but is not allowed to read all the books he wants or likes by his parents. One day his mom even drops by to give a list with books / subjects Ian is allowed to read.One day Lucy arrives at work to find Ian there. It is obvious he spend the night. While she is still planning on bringing him home even though she does not agree and wants to save Ian from his parents, Ian makes up a story which sends them on a road trip together.This book is funny and a real page turner, though I could not pull it off as I read the book during Christmas. As soon as I had a minute I grabbed the book to continue on the adventure of Ian and Lucy. The book holds a lot of references to other books which is very entertaining. The story itself makes perfect sense and as an adult I was wondering throughout the book if I would have fallen for the charming adventurous ideas if Ian or not. I really saw the boy jumping around having all these wild thoughts and telling them as a story while a young woman was observing him and wondering what she had to do. All characters important to the story are well played out like Ian's parents for example, you do not get that much information but that what you get is placed to dislike them therefore putting you on the side to take him from them, but are you really sure they are that bad?If you liked adventurous stories like the Five as a child this is sure a good adult version replacement for it.