The Last Chance Library

by Freya Sampson

She claimed to only read highbrow literary novels, but June knew she’d renewed Fifty Shades of Grey at least three times.

Nothing wrong with a little kink 🤭

“Do you know why the white elephant stall is my favorite?” June’s mum used to say. “It’s a place for the unloved, the outcasts that nobody wants. And I’ve always loved an underdog.”

As a child, she used to believe that each book had its own smell, specific to its story, and the smell of a library was the combined scent of thousands of different tales.

I love this!

And she understood implicitly what it felt like to be more at home with books than with people, to prefer the adventures and travels within their pages to those in real life.

This resonates with me for sure. Real life just doesn’t live up to fantasy books.

But we weren’t like you bloody millennials, with your avocado on toast and soya lattes; we actually believed in things and were willing to fight for them.”

Don’t knock the avocado toast until you try it lady!

People could hurt her, June had realized, in a way that a character in a novel never would.

Unless that character suffers a great misfortune and the accompanying empathy pain hurts quite a great deal. And given that I care more about my favorite characters than I do about most people…idk how much I can agree with this one.

Libraries are like a net, there to catch those of us in danger of falling through the cracks. That’s what we’re really fighting to protect.”

“I said I’d like to take out the librarian, please?” June felt her face getting hot. She opened her mouth to speak, but as she did, Alex lifted up a copy of The Librarian by Salley Vickers.

Smooth, Alex. Very smooth.

“I can now see why people love fantasy novels: they’re the perfect escape from real life.”

💯 yes please.

“This might sound strange, but I always had this image of your life after school, where you’d go to uni and have all these smart, bookish friends, and you’d all have deep, intellectual conversations.”

This can apply to multiple people, including myself. Alas, it was not to be…At least in regards to me.

I’ve never really seen the point in men.

“Life could be full of excitement, if you allow yourself to live a little.”

“Time is precious, my dear. If you have romantic intentions toward Alex, you should tell him.”

wherever I ended up, and however much trouble I was in, there was always a library. A place that was safe and warm and dry, where no one would judge me. Libraries were my only light in some very dark times.

This reminds me of my childhood.

Libraries are places where everyone, rich or poor, wherever they come from in the world, can feel safe. Where they can access information that will empower them.”