The Book Ninja by Ali Berg and Michelle Kalus Book Review

Book Description (via Goodreads): Frankie Rose is desperate for love. Or a relationship. Or just a date with a semi-normal person. It’s not that she hasn’t tried – Frankie is the queen of online dating. But she has had enough. Deciding to embark on the ultimate dating experiment, inspired by her job at The Little Brunswick Bookshop, Frankie places her hope in her favourite books to find her the perfect man… Secretly planting copies on trains, trams and buses, Frankie hopes to find the man of her dreams through a mutual love of good books. But one spontaneous kiss later and Frankie begins to fall for a guy called Sunny. There’s just one tiny problem – Frankie is strictly a Jane Austen kind of woman and Sunny is really into Young Adult. Seriously, obsessively into it… Can Frankie overcome her book snobbery for the man of her dreams? Or will she be left searching the trains for her modern-day Mr Darcy forever?

I have given The Book Ninja by Ali Berg and Michelle Kalus five out of five stars ⭐️⭐️⭐️⭐️⭐️

I laughed so much whilst reading this book, it was definitely a fun, fluffy (although there are some sad parts) read which I desperately needed in my life!

This book is set in Melbourne, Australia where we follow a twenty-something woman called Frankston Rose (named after the train station, but Frankie for short). Frankie is a total book snob who in fact had written two books, but due to her career and relationship failure she now works in The Little Brunswick Bookshop with her best friend Cat and Cat’s husband Claud. Frankie’s love life is helpless, but Cat helps spur in an idea in Frankie’s bookish brain that will ignite a new love for writing again. What could possibly go wrong?

There’s just something about a book based around characters who loves books themselves which warms my heart and I knew (almost immediately) that I was going to enjoy this book. In the first chapter, we learn that Frankie loves loves LOVES books and has 172 of her all-time favourite books in a rainbow order on her bookshelves at home! (I mean I knew she would love books as per the title of the book but not to this extent and I am all here for it!)

The characters that we get to meet and cherish in this book are ones I hope I can hold close for a long while. I absolutely loved Frankie and Cat’s friendship and the fact that these two best friends work together in a bookshop just sounds like so much fun. The spontaneity of Sunny and Frankie’s relationship felt so refreshing and adventurous, if we weren’t in a pandemic I would definitely suggest to my boyfriend somewhere random for us to go and explore. I thought the development of the characters were well-written and I became invested quite quickly with their lives.

The plot of this book is like none other that I have ever read before and I was instantly drawn in to find out how it would all play out. Not only was this book incredibly written, the use of different formats within the book was really fun as The Book Ninja includes blog posts and a comment section at the end of each chapter. Another part of the book that I wanted to touch open, was that there are lots of literary quotes and bookish themed dialogue throughout the novel which again, I thought was different and fun for the authors to have done.

Such a fun, quirky, laugh out loud book which I’m sure you’ll enjoy reading. If you want to receive some weird looks whilst reading this book due to audibly laughing out loud then I would definitely recommend this book to you and anyone who enjoys quick reading, light-hearted romantic comedies filled with lots of bookish references in between!

Have you read The Book Ninja? If so, what did you like the most about the book? Let me know in the comments below.

Happy reading,

Claire 📚