Lightning review at Smart Bitches, Trashy Books 
 The Mysterious Charms of Arthur Pepper is a fast read, and the characters in the story move through grief and the process of beginning life again. The titular hero - and "titular" is one of my favorite words btw - also learns to become who he wants to be now, instead of existing in a sort of holding pattern following the sum of his habits and obeying the expectations of those around him. 
 Arthur's journey is emotional and difficult. He has to break habits and routines that had once been comfortable and now seemed like a restrictive prison built of times and expectations. He learns to appreciate the neighbors who ask after him and the friend who brought pies and cakes to his home in the year after his wife died, likely keeping him alive. He learns that his relationships are his responsibility, and he has to change in order to thrive in the time he has now as a widower. 
 The story isn't surprising, and there are moments that seem too twee to be real. There's a shocking revelation that was built up as a major turning point, but it didn't shock me all that much. The story of the charms themselves wasn't as compelling as Arthur learning to move on with his life, figuring out who he was and who he wants to be, and walking through the hardest parts of grief to get to the next charm, the next location, the next piece of the story of his wife. He mourns her by learning who she was before she was in his life. 
 The part that got to me most was the ending, which I won't spoil. I was teary eyed at the ending scenes because he learned how to be a better parent when his daughter needed him most. He learned how much his wife loved him, when all along his journey he had reason to doubt their relationship now that he was the only one remembering it while confronting so much contradictory information about her past before she met him. He learned how much he was loved, and that he had value, that his life was a contribution and was worth remembering. Arthur questions his own legacy, if anyone would remember him with fond grief after he died the way he mourned his wife. In the end, his realization that his life mattered, that he was loved, and that he had more to give the world before he died, too, was terribly poignant and made me sniffle for quite awhile after I closed the book. 
 - SB Sarah