Who Are The Characters In Lula Dean'S Little Library Of Banned Books?

What a surprise to laugh so much at Lula Dean’s Little Library of Banned Books! First of all, the cast is very fleshed out: Lula Dean, the town censor; Beverly Wainwright Underwood, strict school board member; Lindsay and Ronnie, two teenagers who turn Lula’s little library into a secret distribution point for “banned books”; and Isaac Wright, a smart kid who begins to uncover the myths of his town’s ancestors. Mitch Sweeny and Logan Walsh bring their own special kind of chaos to the story, as well as a host of other colorful locals, like the man who delivers the mail and hears everything, elderly women with strong opinions, and a host of performers. It’s a large and nutty cast, but somehow satire is made with a soft, human core. I closed the book with a feeling of hope, I don’t know why.

My book club basically imploded when we read 'Lula Dean's Little Library of Banned Books'--it's got a ton of half-comic half-tragic relatable characters. At the core of the book is the feud between Lula Dean, a kind of bombastic self-righteous moral spokesperson who, after banning books from the local library, sets up her own Little Free Library filled with her approved tomes, and Beverly Wainwright Underwood, the more measured school board member who is opposing Lula Dean's crusade. The story really follows the actions of Beverly's daughter Lindsay (often referred to as Lindsay/Lindsey in reviews) and her friend Ronnie Childers, who secretly keep filling Lula's library with banned books, rewrapped in innocuous dust jackets, causing increasingly strange reactions throughout town. There's also a lot with 17-year-old Isaac Wright, the valedictorian, who is coming to terms with who he is and trying to figure out his family's history. In addition to these main characters, there's a huge cast of supporting characters who really make Troy, Georgia feel like a real place. You've got Mitch Sweeny, the muscley, "evil" Southern actor; troubled 17-year-old Logan Walsh who is starting to get into some really terrible ideologies; and a host of other characters, including Jeb Sweeney and the other guys involved in that scene; Nathan Dugan and Delvin Crump who are kind of on opposite sides of the town's tensions with law and order; and a variety of minor characters, including Lula's kids (Talia and Taylor), the grumpy postman, the prom queen who is way more substance than you'd expect, the crotchety great-grandma, and the local drag queen. It's a huge cast, but they're all cartoonish and real at the same time. I laughed. I was moved. I was reminded of how books come into people's lives.

I entered the book ‘Lula Dean’s Little Library of Banned Books’ expecting satire, but ended up loving the messy characters who populate the town in this novelist’s vision. The author has gotten Lula Dean, the straight-laced citizen, largely right in depicting her as the catalyst for the censorship campaign on the school board, most notably opposing Beverly Underwood (also referred to as Beverly Wainwright Underwood in some versions). Lindsay Underwood and Ronnie Childers get credit for switching out the pleasant covers for the Little Library of Banned Books with the actual banned books, which then proceed to be read by people such as Isaac Wright, a young, proud man uncovering family secrets, and Mitch Sweeny, a silver-screen actor who rides the wave of outrage to further his own ends. Logan Walsh and Nathan Dugan are darker characters on the fringes of the town’s politics, while the colorful cameos of the postman who knows all the secrets of the town, the homicidal homemaker, and the ancient residents finding their voice and expressing themselves loudly were all delightful. But the satire is so sharp it often made me laugh out loud, and by the end of the book I was strangely affected by the whole.