My thanks go out to netgalley and to the publisher for providing me with an advanced reader copy in exchange for an honest review.
With a title like the 24-hoir café I obviously had to try and read it across 24 hours and I do feel like it added to the experience though I understand not everyone going for the option of waking up at midnight to achieve this 😉.
This is a lovely book about friendship and the pursuit of your childhood dream. It shows the dedication and grit needed to keep at it even when the cards aren't really working in your favor. I went into this book expecting some sort of a romantic plotline to appear and was very pleased to find it missing. Instead the great love at the focus of this novel is the friendship between Hannah and Mona. A friendship under strain because of certain events that recently took place and because of varying levels of success in their pursuit of their craft.
The story is filtered through their presence in the café. At midnight Hannah starts a 12h shift and so the first 12 chapters zoom in on her. Midway through we shift perspective and hear Mona's side of the story. I thought this way of telling the story worked better than a more traditional way of telling the story where we probably would've alternated perspectives every chapter. Anchoring our narration in the café also allows the author to intersperse the story of these two friends with small glimpses into the lives of some of its customers. Do you like sitting down at a table to do some people watching? This book is basically offering that experience to us.
In my personal opinion I would've liked to have seen the ending handled differently. We get a time jump at the end and revisit all perspectives in a final chapter. I prefer a more open ending. And even though their stories are in no way presented to us as being final and closed, for me personally it would've worked better if we had left out that final chapter, thus underlying the transient nature of the café. Knowing people's intent as they left the café was enough for me.

I had high expectations of this book as I’d previously read ‘The Lido’ by Libby page. And I wasn’t disappointed.
Libby has this natural talent of being able to capture the readers with her ability with word - setting the mood and characters so well.
Thank you to the publishers and NetGalley for gifting me this book.

This book is told in chapters that are a hour ina day.
The characters are believable and relatable.
This book isn’t my usual genre but it was very enjoyable.

Set in Stella's cafe opposite Liverpool Street station the two main characters in The 24Hour Cafe are Hannah and Mona. They live together and both work as waitresses at the cafe.
Being open for 24 hours means that people from all walks of life come through its doors and the stories attached to these customers weave nicely between the mainstay of the book; Hannah and Monas lives in their early 30s.
Both are struggling performer's singer and dancer and there is a theme of the importance of relationships running through the book romantic, friendship and even colleagues.
A winner for me.

If, like me, you enjoy people watching in pubs/cafes etc then this is the perfect book for you.

Not only does it have two main characters that you’ll fall in love with it also shows us so many different people and snippets of their lives. Not only from their own perspectives but also from Hannah or Mona’s, I loved this element so much!

I also enjoyed the flashbacks and descriptions of past events to help set the scenes better.

I didn’t want this book to end at all. I was savouring every last page willing it to last longer, the last 15% or so of the book was just so wonderful. The completeness of the loose ends and the very last sentence.

Such a simple idea for a story but executed so brilliantly!

24 Hour Cafe

This is a nice gentle story with detailed descriptions of characters.

There is a series of mini stories interwoven within the main story, involving the customers and staff at a 24 hour cafe. then giving an insight into their back stories and why they are there.

I found this to be an easy, entertaining read, full of the joy of love, companionship and friendship.

This is a wonderful story about the lifes of different people who come to Stellas Cafe by Liverpook Street Station, and set within the 24 hour period.

I enjoyed reading it, it's well-written and the characters are charming.

It's like sitting there in the cafe and people watching.

Really enjoyed this book. Its an easy, uplifting cosy story. I liked the characters and the style of writing.

'The 24-Hour Cafe' by Libby Page was featured on Caboodle from National Book Tokens.

Did you love The Lido, Libby Page's stunning Sunday Times bestselling debut about community, friendship and outdoor swimming? In January 2020, Orion will publish The 24-Hour Café, Libby's brand new novel set over the course of one life-changing day in a busy city café, following the lives of waitresses Hannah and Mona and the community they are at the centre of.

After loving her first book, I was delighted to get a chance to read Ms Page’s second, through Netgalley. And I wasn’t disappointed! Beautifully crafted, a tale of the people who work in Stella’s welcoming cafe, and of those who visit, through a 24 hour period.
Hannah and Mona have a special relationship, a friendship that should go on forever, through troubles and happinesses. But will it survive this?
I loved the way that many ends were tied up at the end of the book, even though some I’d maybe have preferred to not know.

Although I enjoyed this book I didn't think it was quite as good as The Lido. Told over the course of 24 hours we are introduced to two people who work at the cafe. There's an eclectic mix of customers which all have their own story. It's an easy book to read and worth reading.

One of my favourite pass times is to take my current read, find a nice cafe, order a latte, and immerse myself in a good book, whilst keeping an eye on my fellow customers and staff. You always wonder why they are there, are they enjoying a moment alone, catching up with friends or stopping off on the way to somewhere else? This was something Libby Page explored in her wonderful novel The 24 Hour Cafe. a Cafe that I want to visit, so brilliantly eclectic did it sound, with Ernest the stuffed bear the absolute highlight. I did wonder if Page had based her novel on a real 24 hour cafe and I shall be avidly searching the London streets near Liverpool Street when i visit in the new two weeks.

If the inside of the cafe was interesting, its characters were fascinating particularly best friends Hannah and Mona. Both thirty, waitresses, who chased their big break as they auditioned for singing and dancing jobs.

Hannah, was I felt, young for her age, perhaps closeted by an upbringing in Wales, surrounded by the love of two parents. Her life seemed to be at a crossroads as she wallowed in that post break up upset, and contemplated a newly single life. At times I found her selfish and frustrating, and often wanted to shake her, to look and see what was happening around her as she watched her life crumble.

Mona, was what I would call solid, independent, self sufficient yet missed the love that comes from a close family, both parents remarried and overseas. Her friendship with Hannah was her family and as that friendship teetered you could feel her upset and indeed grief. Mona had that resilience that you knew would serve her well, would see her make a success of whatever followed.

I loved that Page gave us their back story, the beginnings of their friendship, the shared life events and that absolute trust they-had between each other.

Page didn’t just concentrate on Hannah and Mona, she also gave us a myriad of cafe customers, whose own lives were perhaps not as perfect as they or other people thought. They were often lonely, or about to set out on a new adventure, mothers with babies, the office workers and the late night club goers.

If ever there was a lesson in ‘don’t just a book by its cover’ or don’t stereotype then Page‘s diverse mix of characters was it. Outward appearances never tell the full story and not until we stop, look and listen can we truly understand just how some suffer, or even just celebrate and enjoy life.

You wanted everyone to have their happy ending and I liked that Page didn’t take the tried and tested route, mixed it up, surprising us, with some of the outcomes.

The real crux of the novel lay in its examination of friendship, the question of durability to withstand everything we could throw at it. Was anything forgivable or do we just cut our losses and leave?

Did Hannah and Mona’s friendship survive? That is a question I won’t answer here but instead tell you to read The 24 Hour Cafe and discover for yourself.

I really enjoyed The Lido, so couldn't wait to dive in to this book.

The characters were so well developed and you really get to know them throughout the book, as well as the other customers. This book really explores friendship and I thoroughly enjoyed reading it!

I loved The Lido, so was intrigued to see what Libby Page's next book would be like and I wasn't disappointed. The author's love of London and the people who belong to the communities within the city shines strongly through her writing and is impossible to resist, as it draws you into the threads of people's lives brought together by their connections, however brief, in Stella's Cafe. The strong female friendship at the core of the story between Hannah and Mona is bittersweet in it's portrayal of how easy it is to hurt those we hold closest and compliments the other stories interweaving around it. A moving, thoughtful story that gets under your skin.

A really good read. Mona and Hannah are best friends and both have dreams to become successful Mona as a dancer and Hannah as a singer. While they are waiting for their big break they start working in the cafe. It's while they are working that each of them decide what they really want to do. The story alternates between the two of them as they see the customers come and go all with different stories to tell. A story of friendship and life changes that tell the story behind the faces of the customers in the 24hour cafe

I first caught sight of The 24 Hour Cafe over on instagram months ago when lots of bookstagrammers were receiving copies and it was one of those books that I knew instantly I wanted to read. There was something about this book that really drew me to it and I instantly went and pre-ordered it.

I love a story that is character driven and the The 24 Hour Cafe is just that, it covers a 24 hour time period with Hannah and Mona who both work in Stella’s cafe and share a flat together. Both Mona and Hannah strive to be performers, Hannah a singer and Mona a dancer but life in this industry is tough and I really enjoyed reading how they came to be where they are and the life they’ve led so far. The story gives us flashbacks to the past which were sometimes happy and sad and really gave as insight into the two characters.

Not only do we find out about Hannah and Mona but we get a glimpse into some of the customers lives as well. Some of these customers it’s more of an observation of their lives and others we get a bit more, it’s almost like a short story within the story which I absolutely loved and reading some of the those stories really made me feel emotional at times, the writing is so wonderfully done it makes these characters really come to life and I had to give myself a shake and remind myself this was fiction.

I finished The 24 Hour Cafe a couple of nights ago and it’s one of those books that really stays with you, the characters really take hold of your heart and they’re not easy to forget about. This is the first book I’ve read by Libby Page and her writing is just sublime, it really pulls you into the story and just absorbs you.

If you’re looking for a story that totally draws you in and consumes you, with characters that come to life and feel so real, a story about friendship and so much more then The 24 Hour Cafe is the story for you. I’ll warn you now though that once you pick this book up you won’t want to put it down until you’ve turned the very last page and then you’ll feel bereft it’s over.

I’ve really not done this book justice at all with this review so I highly recommend you see for yourself just how wonderful it is. I never re-read books but this one may just be an exception.

I absolutely adored this book. Set in a 24 hour cafe there are two halves to this book - the one focusing on the friendship between Hannah and Mona and the other telling the stories of all the people who frequent the cafe. I found that I loved both halves but especially loved all of the scenes with the customers, particularly as the book progressed and some of them reappeared.

A book which is full of really believable characters, finely drawn and intricate so that you feel as if you 'know' them by the end. This was a strong novel which was perhaps a little slow for me initially, but grew to a very warming read. Recommended, particularly if you enjoyed 'The Lido'.

Having read The Lido, I was looking forward to Libby Page’s next book. This one didn’t disappoint. An easy read, but likeable and believable. We meet a few characters in the 24 Hour Cafe, including the staff. We hear peoples’s stories, their lives and their loves. This is chick lit, but at its best. A great read for during this time we are currently living in. Stay home, stay safe and read this feel-good book.

This was a nice heartwarming story but I did find it was a little slow paced and I didn't warm to the characters as much as I hoped I would. Still worth a read though.