I really enjoyed this book. I loved the idea of the little library being filled with banned books and enjoyed all of the characters stories and how they changed by reading the banned books.
The book had a serious message but I was laughing out loud as I was reading it.
A great read that I will definitely recommend.

I can honestly say, that this is one of the best books I've ever read!! Wow! It really hit the emotions and I think everyone should read it! Powerful.

Thank you so much to netgalley, the author and publisher for an e-arc in exchange for an honest review.

On the surface, a joyous light hearted read. But actually this book really makes the reader examine their own views on practices such as book banning. Thought provoking!

What a fabulous book this one is, I saw this and the synopsis and thought this looked good. While it has some humour, there is also a very serious message behind it.

The thought of having books banned is abhorrent to me, but in today's world, someone will always be offended by a book. Books challenge our opinions and they educate us, but what if a small group decided to ban books based on their own opinions? What if those opinions are more extreme than you realise?

This book started as a fun read, the thought of having a prim and proper selection of books outside someone's house to be exchanged for books that are completely different. The author uses a small southern US town that has a long history and has different backgrounds depending on who you are and what family you come from.

With each of the books that are borrowed from the "accepted" books in the little library, we are introduced to the character that borrows said book. This gradually builds up several characters and their stories intertwine and give the story the serious side to it. The characters have a range of backgrounds, abilities and beliefs. These beliefs can be challenging to others and there are mentions of racism, homophobia, woke society, far-right and many others. It is a crosshatch of stereotypes that may be found in communities anywhere in the world. The author does take this one further than would possibly happen, but then as the saying goes "You never know what goes on behind closed doors!"

I think this is where the crux of the story and people's beliefs come into their own. Living in an idea that one person believes is right, does not mean it is right for everyone. Having access to all the facts and not questioning what you read can lead to a selective idea of the world around us. This is where books come in, whether fact or fiction, they give readers alternative ideas, that is if you have access to them.

The author does mention at the end of her book how she came to write this book and the things she discovered along the way. It gives an eye-opening moment of reflection and it is well worth spending the extra time reading it.

This is a fabulous book that I soon became engrossed in, it is one of those books that was an unexpected one as the synopsis felt different to the actual story. Ideal for those who like contemporary fiction and one I would definitely recommend.

I really enjoyed this clever book with a satirical take on book banning.

Lula has decided that the children of Troy a fictional town in a southern US State are in danger from terrible wicked books which have no place in the town library. As well as starting a campaign to remove them from the library shelves Lula sets up her own wholesome library in from of her house. Someone deliberately swaps the books so that the original worthy dust jackets hide the new books and the town is exposed to books that really mean something to each of them.

The author delivers a strong message about the power of what we read and the dangers of hiding knowledge all deftly delivered with a good amount of humour. A novel to both enjoy and to make you think.

What an incredible Book it's inspiring , uplifting had me splitting my sides with laughter, crying, getting really angry at some of the characters whom I wanted to slap & others have put in uncomfortable situations until they changed their ways or else be locked up for committing so many wrongs against humanity in the 21st century & this is actually happening across the US & other Countries too. But enough of that, this book is beautifully written & I am recommending this book to lots of friends & it's a book I'm even going to get my almost 16 year old granddaughter to read too. #NetGally, #GoodReads, #FB, #Instagram, #Amazon.co.uk , #<img src="https://www.netgalley.com/badge/8a5b541512e66ae64954bdaab137035a5b2a89d2" width="80" height="80" alt="200 Book Reviews" title="200 Book Reviews"/>, #<img src="https://www.netgalley.com/badge/ef856e6ce35e6d2d729539aa1808a5fb4326a415" width="80" height="80" alt="Reviews Published" title="Reviews Published"/>, #<img src="https://www.netgalley.com/badge/aa60c7e77cc330186f26ea1f647542df8af8326a" width="80" height="80" alt="Professional Reader" title="Professional Reader"/>.

What an amazing read! I thoroughly enjoyed the story about the people living in Troy. It highlights the perception we have of people around the world and their behaviours of racism and homophonia. This book also highlights the past history of slavery and the treatment of people by men in power. Also very relevant in our current times is the book banning taking place in states across the USA.

The formidable and strong women in this book especially Wilma Crump and Beverly Underwood will make feminists out there want to be like them. Lindsay and Bella show that their role models are their mother and grandmother who have taught them to be strong and stand up to the bullies.

There's laughter, joy and sadness but mostly the coming together of a community in this wonderful book. I also loved each chapter title and at times had to try and remember all the characters as there were many. I loved Dr Chokshi and his words of wisdom to Mitch Sweeney.

It was lovely to have a beautiful ending to the story.

Easy read but brings together some interesting characters fighting against the American right. Each story features a character and a book which will change their lives. It shows how important education is to bring people together to fight Lulu Dean who wants to ban these, and many other, books. Makes you realise how much authoritarians try to restrict reading and knowledge.

I love this book which looks into small town America where the Lulu Dean of the title has been instrumental in causing lots of books to be withdrawn from public libraries and banned. She sets up her own tiny library outside our house and fills it with what she feels to be appropriate books for the population mischief and merriment occurs and these books are taken out of their book jackets and replaced by the very books that she’d banned.
I love the way that you met the population of the town gradually as the story unfolds and learned how they have been affected by the book banning . Person who needed the books to find representation of themselves within the community, the person who was raped and needed the books to find their voice.
I love the way the actual books were “quoted in the novel and as a reader I was surprised how few of them I had actually read. There were definitely a few that I had to be read list after reading this novel.

I wanted to love the authors previous book The Change but although I loved the premise I didn’t enjoy the book .I was willing to give this one a go however when I saw it on NetGalley UK and I’m so glad that I did

I would recommend this novel for those that are primarily based. The character development is precise and developed in a subtle nuanced way. The people all feel very real and you feel like you know them by the end of the novel. I suspect that this novel will be very popular this summer. I wouldn’t be surprised if it makes it onto the best sellers lists
I copy of the novel on NetGalley UK. The book is published on the 20th of June 2024 by HQ
This review will appear on NetGalley UK, Goodreads, and my book blog bionicSarahSbooks.WordPress.com. It will also appear on Amazon UK.

In the small town of Troy, Lula Dean and Beverly Underwood have been enemies since high school and things get more complicated when Lula is on a mission to rid the school and town libraries of books that she feelscontains propaganda or pornography. However Lesley (Beverly's daughter) slips in books on the banned list and changes their covers.
I think this book covers most topics! Anti-semisitism, homophobia, racism, slavery etc and it had me wondering all the way through which direction it was going in. It all comes together in the end!
It's a story of allowing the truth to be told, even if history/ancestors got it wrong at times and making sure the same mistakes won't be repeated.

If you fear for our freedom to say and think as we wish Lula Dean’s Little Library of Banned Books has got to be top of your reading list this summer.
In a town in America, a provocative baking book placed in the local library as a joke gives Lula Dean enough ammunition to persuade a group of citizens to “cleanse” the library of unsuitable books.
Soon, many of the residents begin to fight back, helped by a clever act by one of the younger people who manages to get the banned books into the hands of exactly the people who need them. As the books work their magic the town is changed forever and long buried secrets emerge.
I loved this book - the first few chapters read as interlinked short stories as we get to know the key characters but as events move on it becomes more of a whole. There are some unforgettable people -in particular the 80 year old lawyer Wilma Jean who is fighting her family’s attempts to put her in a home and proving that age is no impediment if your brain is still agile. It’s very funny and an absolute page turner but carries a serious message, ignore it at your peril.

This book was so hard hitting at the same time as being a really enjoyable read. It had such a strong message against all kinds of hate and prejudice. It had characters from many different walks of life featured, but without the reader having to stress out about who is who. It was a really powerful book.

I loved how the different narratives weaved into each other. At the start of the book it almost seemed like a series of interconnected short stories, but as the book progressed the events of the chapters started to overlap and bring it all together. It was a really effective way of showing how all the banned books that people got from Lula Dean’s library were affecting the whole town and bringing them all together to fight against Lula Dean herself.

It was a really easy to read book, that grabbed me from the first chapter. There were parts which were told from the point of view of some not so nice people or in some cases people with views who were changed over the course of the book, but having these people challenged by others or changed by the books they read made me happy, because it really showed the power of books and words.

Don’t be put off by the hard topics covered in this book. It is a book of power, a book of joy and a book of rebellion.

I absolutely loved The Change by Kirsten Miller, it’s a clever and powerful book that ignites all your emotions. I was curious to see if this book would hit me with the same ferocity - spoiler alert it did!

From the first page it is a tour de force. It cracks open the prejudices, the histories and the rivalries that exist within a small town. It shows the importance of using history to educate and improve and it warns of the dangers of miseducation and manipulating history to follow a personal agenda.

Whilst it tackles some heavy themes, it does so with humour and whip smart comments, which were so satisfying they made me green with envy that I didn’t write them!

For someone who spends a lot of their time championing books and celebrating the benefits of reading; the banning of books is a truly frightening thought. Kirsten Miller argues our cause in this novel. Through her cast of characters we see how books and reading educates, inspires, enlightens, comforts and above all entertains and brings joy.

One of my favourite reads this year, it’s a must read for all book lovers but not for those who are easily offended by phallic shaped baked goods!

Even those this is a nice, easy read that feels like a simple chick-lit type read it is actually really clever and shines a spot light on so much that is wrong with America right now! Kirsten Miller is so socially aware and exposes so many flaws in society in this book without being derogatory or making people looks stupid!
Another funny, entertaining, thought-provoking book from Kirsten Miller. A must read.

I really enjoyed The Change and this was even better. It combined all the slightly claustrophobic drama of a small town boiling over with current socio-economic and political issues, all told with wit and humour. Essentially small town ‘bigot’ who is really an unhappy woman who wants attention, causing a huge book banning at her local library. She then opens a little free library and stocks it with ‘appropriate’ titles. Someone swaps the dust jackets on the books and hilarity ensues. No spoilers but it’s great to watch the unfolding of how a single book can change a person’s perspective. While this has a generous measure of wish fulfilment, it’s inkeeping with the hopeful tone of the book. Miller extends grace to almost everyone and it’s good to see everyone, regardless of background, status, education or race being both very wrong on some things and very right on others. I have a few minor quibbles but nothing I care to mention here – matters of opinion only. This is an exceptionally clever and funny book. Highly recommend. As a bonus, the incomparable January Levoy narrates the audio book.

This was such a hard-hitting and engaging read following multiple people living in the small town of Troy in Georgia. It is such an important read which deals with a lot of heavy themes and social issues such as censorship, homophobia, racism, sexual abuse and misogyny however I love the way Miller added humour into it making it entertaining.

I loved the message in this book and I loved the discussion of how important books can be in growing up and in learning. I also really liked the way it incorporated a handful of actual titles that have been banned and how these books changed the way individuals in this book thought and how they helped them grow.

While there are numerous characters and we see the events happening from their points of view I never once felt overwhelmed or confused about what was happening. The story flowed really well and I think having the story told this way helped build up the importance of the story and how certain people think. Honestly this is an great story that I feel everyone should pick up!

Thank you so much to NetGalley and the publisher for providing me with a copy of this book in exchange for an honest review.

“He said dress codes are necessary because if girls are allowed to wear what we want, the boys won’t be able to focus. I said why not let the girls dress comfortably and send the boys home until they can show self-control.”

Troy, Georgia. Lula Dean has a chip on her shoulder from way back..something to do with Beverley. Lula is on a mission to eliminate the corruptive power of reading, has stripped the school library of inappropriate books and set her up own little library with ‘safe’ fiction. Dawn’s husband has a basement full of memorabilia which she gets to dust once a week. Isaac has told his family he’s gay..and Wilma Jean knows her family are after her money and want to put her in a home…

I introduced my review of The Change with the following sentence, ‘This is one of the most delicious, original and absolute badass books you will read this year…’ I don’t think I can improve on that as an introduction to Lula Dean. Kirsten Miller has done it again with another fabulous and piercingly insightful novel in which she takes on ‘book banning, white nationalism, anti-semitism..’

This is a book about stories, about narratives - the kind of narratives that people tell about their lives, about history and which obscure and rebrand the truth. In the course of the novel the residents of Troy read Lula’s books and in so many ways Troy’s residents discover what’s really behind the covers.

This is a book which grabs you on page one and never lets go. In some ways it reminded me of Desperate Housewives with the petty jealousies, secrets, domestic struggles and lies with a blend of drama and comedy. But this goes far deeper, stripping out deeply rooted prejudices and age-old histories. And, of course because it is America, there is always a gun somewhere…

The author has a wicked and wonderful sense of humour which had me howling, whilst the issues she addressed left me saddened and frustrated. Her characterisation is superb and never over-shone by the issues.

“As far as he was concerned, if your faith was shaken by foul words or sex scenes, then you must not have had very much to begin with."

For book lovers and haters book bans everywhere!

Huge thanks to HQ Stories and Netgalley for my digital copy of this wonderful book.

The author cleverly manages to encompass so many very important issues in this book, slavery, racism, anti semitism, misogyny and prejudice experienced by LBQT people. She successfully blends all these topics into a story which happily resolves many individuals problems.

A fun read with a serious message. I loved the timeliness of this book and the important subject matter. It shows the obsurdity of banning books and of a few individuals deciding what people can and can’t read. I am UK based and this is not an issue that’ we have to deal with, unlike those ‘over the pond’. Thankfully.
The novel makes the subject accessible and it felt real. The cast of characters are likeable (mostly) and show the strength of feeling about this issue and the many repercussions of a book ban. The plot also includes a campaign to remove the statute of a confederate and slave owning general, which is also very well done.
Good luck to our American cousins and thank you to Kirsten Miller for tacking this. Bravo!

This year I've been pretty lucky with the amount of books I've been getting in advance, and this book is no exception and probably one of my favourite books of the year if I am quite honest.

Set in Georgia, Lula Dean's Little Library of Banned Books takes us on a ride with one of the most on the pulse 'culture war' topics that is currently going strong right now, the banning of book and uses it to expose the hypocrisy and the prejudices of the community this book is set in. Brilliantly witty and fantastically paced this book is exceptional.

The characters of Lula and Beverley really are so different and so brilliantly written, that it is almost cinematic as these scenes jump off the page (I would love to see this as a show, I think the drama would be brilliant) particularly between these two, however as this book focuses on a small town the array of characters allows for more perspective which I found so interesting and so enjoyable - to see the growth of these characters via the power of books is such a pleasure to read.

One of those books I'm probably gonna make everyone around me read, this book was one of my most anticipated reading the blurb, and I need to own it physically for my own library collection - and I want everyone to find it!

(thanks to Netgalley and the publisher for the ARC).