I live about three hours north of Chicago, and every few months my friends and I do a “food run,” where we pick up all the delicious noms we cannot get here–food from the Super H-Mart, Lou Malnati’s pizzas, matzo ball soup from my favorite deli, etc.
This trip we added in a stop the The Last Chapter Bookshop in Roscoe Village.
First of all, and perhaps most importantly, I was immediately happy when I walked in the door. The vibes here are excellent. Taylor Swift’s “Welcome to New York” was playing on speakers, the store was busy but not so crowded I was uncomfortable, and the staff was friendly and greeted me. The people shopping, all of them women with the exception of my husband, were happy.
For context, I’ve been dealing moving aging parents into assisted living/ memory care and late night panicked phone calls from a parent with dementia and things have just generally really sucked. This is the first thing I’ve done just for fun for me in a few months, and I am so happy I did it. It was being surrounded by the things I love and people who also love those things and it was very uplifting.
Now that you know the vibes were great, it’s time for details.
You’ll be street parking to shop here, so plan for that. We had to drive around a little bit given it was a Saturday, but ultimately were able to grab parking right in front of the store. You also have to pay for street parking.
There is also a cannabis store next door, in case you want to have a really good visit.
The store is about 50/50 books and bookish items like drink-wear, clothing, candles, totes, stickers and pins.
I immediately snagged two cute magnetic bookmarks and a Bridgerton scented candle (floral and sweet). I also found a tote bag to bring my loot home in.
As you move toward the back of the store, there are three former fitting rooms that have been converted into selfie rooms and they’re amazing.
I loved this because it makes it clear that the space is not just for buying stuff, it’s also for celebrating that you love romance novels. You have the space to take pictures of yourself or you with friends and document that you love this stuff, and I wish a space like this had been around 20 years ago when I was hiding my historical romances in between other books at the library because I thought the librarian would judge me.
There were groups of women shopping together and they were excited, showing each other what they had found. This made me so happy.
So now for the actual book selection. I was a little bummed to see that most of the books appeared to be curated from Book Tok, and most were contemporary romance of some variety. I only saw a few historical romances, for example.
The shelves were divided up by subcategory–romantasy (a lot of Sarah J. Maas), sports romance, dark contemporary (which included more erotic titles that weren’t really dark romance, IMO, like Sara Cate), and shelves for LGBTQIA+ and BIPOC titles.
There was also a section for special editions.
I wish there had been a greater variety of books, but even as I say that, I did buy six titles so obviously the pickings weren’t slim.
I also think this is a place you go for the atmosphere and the bookish swag, not necessarily just for books.
I’ll be rolling a stop here into my future Chicago runs.
Want to see what I snagged? Of course you do.
Have you been to The Last Chapter Bookshop?
