There are (understandably) a lot of books about the magic and mystery of writers and their poems and stories. This book, set in a haunted second-hand bookstore, does a good job of communicating the author’s love of words but didn’t really draw me in until almost 200 pages had passed. Emily, the bookstore’s owner, dreams of a sinister magician, and it’s only when we discover the role the magician has to play in the story that I really got hooked. It seemed like the ghosts that occupied the beginning of the book had no significance to the plot in the end, and I wonder if the young adults that this book is intended for will make it through such a long and uneventful buildup.

"Over time, a bookshop will take the shape of its owner. Emily had been at the Green Man so long that it had grown around her like a second skin. The books were her flesh; the words that flowed through them were the blood that ran through her veins. The poetry section was the beating heart of the collection (66)."

If the above passage speaks to you, then you're probably the right reader for this book. It doesn't matter your age, if you feel more at home in a secondhand bookstore than say, at your actual home, you'll settle into this book's atmosphere like a cat into a pile of freshly laundered clothes. If the idea that poets are all "crazy people" with a special perspective of our world (and maybe even other worlds), add this book pronto.

For me, The Green Man was to poetry as Among Others was to sci-fi novels. Both held their respective forms high on a pedestal and showered me in various works and authors' names - some well-known, others obscure - implanting a subliminal urge to read everything mentioned. Both featured a young adult's quest to find herself. Both dipped their pinky toes into otherworldly goings on but, for the most part, remained fixed on the surface of reality.

What I really loved about The Green Man - other than the obvious: books, a cat named Psycho, a bakery across the street from a bookshop, ghosts of poets hanging around the shop - was Emily's ideas about time. (I love all things timey-wimey.) I wonder if the ghosts were an example of that opened door?

One nitpick, had I realized this was a continuation of the mystery and characters introduced in Bedard's first novel, A Darker Magic, I most certainly would have obtained a copy to read prior to this book. However, having read The Green Man first, I don't feel like I missed anything. Quite the opposite, now I absolutely MUST find a copy of A Darker Magic.

4 stars ( )

What book lover doesn't like a story set in an old, haunted bookstore - next to a bakery? And who can resist a little mystery and magic?

A great summer read for a teen. A nice light read for an adult. ( )

When O (just O, not Ophelia) goes to stay with her father's sister Emily (just Emily, not Aunt), she's already wary of poets and scared/excited about becoming one. Poets are crazy, Emily being the most convenient example. This is not the meat of the story, but it was interesting to see O's reactions to reading about the lives of poets, increasingly "crazier" as the book goes on, alongside Emily's growing eccentricity about an evil magician in her dreams. Of course she's crazy; even O, who grows close to Emily, thinks so. But as Emily ramps up the precautions and weird things start to happen, including a dream boy for O and a dream haul for Emily, O starts to believe.

This book is not without flaws. The biggest for me being the jump from nothing to everything that happens in a few different instances. First, O and Emily's relationship. They start prickly, which is understandable considering they don't seem to know each other at all and one of them is a chain-smoking septuagenarian and the other is a health-food eating teenager. Then suddenly, they're close, in a routine, and friends, not just I-don't-want-to-see-you-have-a-heart-attack friends but actual friends. The second being Emily's suspension of disbelief. She goes into the summer afraid of the legacy of crazy poets, her aunt being no exception. She doesn't believe Emily's story about the evil magician who returns to town only when August 8th falls on a Saturday in a leap year (so many details!). She worries about her aunt talking to herself in the shop when she thinks she's alone. And then, out of nowhere, she can see and is fine with the ghosts of poets hanging around; she doesn't talk to them like Emily does, but she treats them like any other fact of life of used bookstores. You have dust, you have teetering towers of books, and you have ghosts. But until it's actually happening, an evil magician is just too much? The book does span an entire summer, and it's hard to tell how much time has passed at any given point. For all I know, there's a skipped month there in the middle. If that had been more clear, I might have been more able to make that jump with O.

All that aside, I loved this book. It is not super suspenseful or super action packed, but I had a really hard time putting it down. It's compelling. And packed in with a compelling story is O's (and to a lesser extent Emily's) musings about poetry. I'm not a big poetry fan and not one to like a book with teen angst poetry scattered about. Luckily, this was not that kind of book. The poetry O writes is not about tru lurv and it is (blessedly) sparse. Bedard manages to convey her love of poetry and writing without showcasing her and her fellow poets' work. Instead, he showcases their passion.

Though there is romance, it is beyond chase (it's more of a crush), and though there is an evil magician intent on killing children, it is not scary. I think this book could skew young or old for the right reader. The kind of middle grade or high school reader who is always reading, longs for old bookshops, secretly (or not-so-secretly) dreams about what would happen if magic was real, and does a lot of scribbling in notebooks. You know the one.

Book source: LibraryThing Early Reviewers ( )

This started a little slow for me, but once O arrived at the bookstore, it really picked up. Lovely language, believable narrator, intriguing setting (love the idea of dead poets haunting a poetry reading) and great twist ending. ( )