Book Talk: Shotgun Lovesongs

Do you ever feel like books find you instead of the other way around?

Because sometimes I think books find me. Shotgun Lovesongs captivated me before I even cracked the cover. I’m fairly certain that I first saw (and loved) the title on someone’s Instagram page, and when I stumbled across it in my library, it felt like fate.

I didn’t even really read the jacket, just added the book to my pile and checked out. It was several weeks before I finally got around to reading the description, but I’m glad that I didn’t read it sooner, because I might not have checked it out in the first place. After all, it doesn’t really seem like something I’d typically go for - it’s about marriage and the midwest, and farms, and the lives of boys who became men without really realizing that’s what they were doing.

But as much as it has nothing to do with my life, it feels like it does. Because it’s about love, and loss, trying to find yourself, and trying to find someone else. Realizing that we never really know each other the way we think we do. Reconnecting with old friends, and forging new relationships. Reading it made me want to travel to a place I’ve never heard of and see the kind of land and meet the kind of people that Nickolas Butler portrays in his novel. He makes a place most people would refer to as BFE seem both unique and at the same time completely familiar.

So while I seemed to know even before I began that this book was something special, I can say with confidence now that it is definitely one I’ll be recommending to anyone and everyone this summer. So read it! And then help me start planning my road trip to Wisconsin.