Violet Lumani’s Letter to Librarians

In NOT GOOD NEIGHBORS, Violet Lumani writes a witty and sizzling fast-paced romantic comedy that proves that love can bloom even where drywall—and patience—have crumbled. In her letter to librarians, she shares the story of the time she got banned from her public library as a child for sneaking adult romance books out, and how libraries and books provided her with a glimpse of another life.

---

Dear Librarians,

I was thirteen when I was banned from the Lodi Public Library, in Lodi, New Jersey.

My crime? Smuggling Johanna Lindsey’s GENTLE ROGUE out in the sleeve of my massive copper-colored puffy jacket (the one with the weird lace patches). It was the nineties, and alas, I was no fashion plate.

In my defense, I always brought the books back. I was a teenager with zero money, an enormous coat, and a helicopter mother who absolutely would have flipped if she’d seen what I was reading, so to my mind, this was the only way to enjoy my favorite genre.

I had a system. The romance novels with relatively innocent covers could be checked out like normal books. Jude Deveraux’s A KNIGHT IN SHINING ARMOR? Piece of cake getting that one past the mom-goalie. But the ones with windswept Fabio, ripped bodices, or a strategically placed hand on a thigh? Those went into the jacket.

Then one tragic day, without my knowledge or consent, the library went and purchased a security system. I can still hear the beeping of that alarm. And the douchechills are just as visceral today as they were the day this all went down.

There I was, frozen in the doorway, mortified, while GENTLE ROGUE was pulled from the jacket I reluctantly handed over. The worst part is that I tried to play it off, giving my mother and the cluster of librarians who’d gathered a surprised look, as if—ABRACADABRA—a book had appeared in my clothing by accident. It was not my finest moment and certainly not my finest performance.

But the truth is, I loved those books. And I needed them. Like a lot of kids with difficult childhoods, I disappeared into books way before I understood I was also finding myself in them. The library was where I went when I needed a glimpse of another life, another world, or just another version of what love, safety, or belonging could look like.

Romance novels were especially intoxicating to me because they were about bruised people, wounded people… people who were too messy, too guarded, too sharp around the edges. And still, by the end of the book, they were chosen anyway. They were seen and they were loved exactly as they were. I was a first-generation American kid coping with trauma, and I often felt like I didn’t belong, or like I was too much or too weird, so it was really heady stuff.

And those books taught me that love could be funny! That laughter was not frivolous, but almost an act of defiance. That if you stuck around long enough, even the saddest stories had a happily ever after waiting for you. And that even the girl hiding in a bathroom stall at lunch with a paperback romance (one with the smuttiest damn cover) could imagine a future where someone looked closely enough to see her fully.

NOT GOOD NEIGHBORS is, at its heart, a book about love and laughter. It is about two prickly, imperfect people who are not immediately their best selves, but who slowly learn to look more closely. Penny’s story is one of healing by degrees, one messy, brave, and sometimes hilarious step at a time. And for all that Penny describes Jack as a “tall drink of cyanide,” they’re perfectly imperfect for each other. Plus he gets to set aside his white knighting with her and be bad sometimes.

I still love romance novels, especially the deeply funny ones. I still spend an inordinate amount of time in libraries. Now I bring my children with me, hoping they feel even a fraction of the joy I felt scanning those shelves. (I promise, I have taught them that stealing, even if it’s the unauthorized-borrowing kind of stealing, is wrong). And I regret to inform you that my fashion choices are only marginally better than they were in the nineties.

Thank you for creating spaces where kids like me could escape, imagine, and eventually come home to themselves. And though libraries and librarians have given me so much already, I do have one last ask… thirty-three years is a long time, and I’m hoping you, and Lodi Public Library, will allow me to put a book on your shelves I didn’t steal first.

Thank you for reading!

xoxo,
Violet Lumani
Author of NOT GOOD NEIGHBORS