Ask a Bookseller: ‘We Burned So Bright’ by TJ Klune

On The Thread’s Ask a Bookseller series, we talk to independent booksellers all over the country to find out what books they’re most excited about right now.Rachel Ostrom of Acorn Bookshop in St. Paul says TJ Klune’s new novel “We Burned So Bright” might make you cry. Klune is author of charming and hopeful New York Bestselling fantasies “The House in the Cerulean Sea” and “Under the Whispering Door,” among several others. This new stand-alone novel has a starker premise than some of Klune’s other works: the end of the world. A black hole has been gobbling up the solar system, and in a month’s time, life on Earth will end. Faced with a clear deadline, husbands Don and Rodney take a road trip across the U.S. to reach an important destination before time runs out.On the way, Ostrom says, they encounter memorable characters with their own varied responses to the end of life on earth. She describes one memorable conversation Rodney and Don have around a campfire with a younger couple, where they recall a previous catastrophic experience:“When they were first together, it was in the 80s, in the midst of the AIDS crisis. They're talking about their friends who died during the AIDS epidemic, and how, like, the government did nothing to help them, and it's just really devastating to hear about that. The conversations they have around that were really incredible and even sparked me to want to learn more about that time.” Acorn Bookshop is the most recent addition to the Twin Cities’ rich indie bookstore scene. It opened in late March in the St. Anthony Park neighborhood of St. Paul. Ostrom says it’s a feminist bookstore, with 75 percent of titles written by women. The store has a sizeable children’s, middle grade and young adult section. Ostrom says the store also has a strong nature focus; Acorn Bookshop gives a percentage of sales every month to Voyageurs Conservancy and Friends of the Mississippi River.