Author: Libby Page
Format reviewed: Ebook
Source: Netgalley
Publisher: Orion
Publication Date: 23rd January 2020
Rating: 4 Stars
Welcome to the café that never sleeps.
Day and night, Stella's Café opens its doors to the lonely and the lost, the morning people and the night owls. It's a place where everyone is always welcome, where life can wait at the door.
Meet Hannah and Mona: best friends, waitresses, dreamers. They love working at Stella's - the different people they meet, the small kindnesses exchanged. But is it time to step outside and make their own way in life?
Come inside and spend twenty-four hours at Stella's Café, where one day might just be enough to change your life . . .
Day and night, Stella's Café opens its doors to the lonely and the lost, the morning people and the night owls. It's a place where everyone is always welcome, where life can wait at the door.
Meet Hannah and Mona: best friends, waitresses, dreamers. They love working at Stella's - the different people they meet, the small kindnesses exchanged. But is it time to step outside and make their own way in life?
Come inside and spend twenty-four hours at Stella's Café, where one day might just be enough to change your life . . .
This was a very calm, relaxed sort of a book for me. It felt like it ambled along at a relatively sedate pace, and that it was easy to put down at the end of a chapter but also pick straight up again for the next.
For each chapter focuses on one hour of the day, in Stella's Cafe, a 24 hour Cafe near Liverpool Street station. The main focus is on the two main waitresses that work there and also are best friend and live together Mona and Hannah, as they each embark on a 12 hour double shift.
We also though get glimpses of some of the customer's and their stories too, and just what the cafe means to them too. The overall writing style was quite gentle, I really liked it, and found the way everything was presented just works.
During the day we really get to know Mona and Hannah well, as they think back to key moments in their friendship, and you can see just how much their friendship deep down does mean to them. They also both are trying to make their career as performers with varying amounts of motivation and determination.
It was certainly a different way to present a story, and a rather clever one at that. I was tending to read this in 1 or 2 hour segments (hours as in how the story is split now how long I was necessarily spending at a time reading) enjoying seeing who was in the cafe, how lingered for a while, and on occasions the thoughts and more of the story of some of the customers.
I also enjoyed the small glimpses at the other members of staff that work in the cafe. and the thoughts that small acts of kindness could have life changing affects for the recipient of them.
Given I was attracted to the book because of the word cafe in the title, and having previously enjoyed The Lido, I hadn't really looked at the blurb, and as a result had no idea what to expect - other than realising within the first few pages that this wasn't your typical cafe book, and that I was intrigued to see just how the pages would unfold.
All the characters were really believable, and this was a great change of pace to my normal books. I'm really glad I had the opportunity to read this really good book.
Thank you to Orion and Netgalley for this copy which I have reviewed honestly and voluntarily.
For each chapter focuses on one hour of the day, in Stella's Cafe, a 24 hour Cafe near Liverpool Street station. The main focus is on the two main waitresses that work there and also are best friend and live together Mona and Hannah, as they each embark on a 12 hour double shift.
We also though get glimpses of some of the customer's and their stories too, and just what the cafe means to them too. The overall writing style was quite gentle, I really liked it, and found the way everything was presented just works.
During the day we really get to know Mona and Hannah well, as they think back to key moments in their friendship, and you can see just how much their friendship deep down does mean to them. They also both are trying to make their career as performers with varying amounts of motivation and determination.
It was certainly a different way to present a story, and a rather clever one at that. I was tending to read this in 1 or 2 hour segments (hours as in how the story is split now how long I was necessarily spending at a time reading) enjoying seeing who was in the cafe, how lingered for a while, and on occasions the thoughts and more of the story of some of the customers.
I also enjoyed the small glimpses at the other members of staff that work in the cafe. and the thoughts that small acts of kindness could have life changing affects for the recipient of them.
Given I was attracted to the book because of the word cafe in the title, and having previously enjoyed The Lido, I hadn't really looked at the blurb, and as a result had no idea what to expect - other than realising within the first few pages that this wasn't your typical cafe book, and that I was intrigued to see just how the pages would unfold.
All the characters were really believable, and this was a great change of pace to my normal books. I'm really glad I had the opportunity to read this really good book.
Thank you to Orion and Netgalley for this copy which I have reviewed honestly and voluntarily.
