It is no surprise that demand and interest for the memoir written by JD Vance, the newly-minted Republican nominee for vice president is jumping.
For the Columbus Metropolitan Library, they were able to adapt quickly and begin ordering more digital and physical copies of Vance's book "Hillbilly Elegy" soon after Donald Trump announced the U.S. Senator from Ohio as his running mate this week. But even now, the library's website states there is a long line to get hold of a copy of the book from them.
"Hillbilly Elegy" recounts Vance's upbringing in Middletown and his family's struggles with drug addiction and domestic violence. It describes a tightly-knit family with roots in Appalachia and drew praise for what it said about the political atmosphere that led to the rise of Trump's presidential run in 2016, which Vance was very critical of at the time.
As of Friday, there are 489 holds requested on the book for the library's 112 physical copies. The library ordered 54 more copies and patrons can also request to borrow a digital or audiobook copy.
Columbus Metropolitan Library Communications Manager Dorcas Taylor Jones said she isn’t surprised at the demand and interest in Vance’s book. Taylor said she thinks everyone will get their chance to read it.
“I'm confident that people who want to read the memoir will be able to read it before the election, if that's part of their goal and hope," Jones said.
The interest in Vance's book isn't just in Columbus. Cleveland Public Library's website said zero copies are available right now and there are 209 holds. In Cincinnati and Vance's hometown of Middletown, however, there are available copies at the local libraries.
Local libraries are also seeing interest spike in copies of "Appalachian Reckoning: A Region Responds to Hillbilly Elegy" by Anthony Harkins and Meredith McCarroll. The book is described as a retort to "Hillbilly Elegy." Vance's memoir has been criticized by people from Appalachia for perpetuating harmful stereotypes about the region and its people.
"Appalachian Reckoning" has 53 holds on seven copies in Columbus and all copies are in use in Cincinnati and Cleveland.
Interest is also peaking on popular book review websites, causing one to pause reviews. When users attempt to review the memoir on Goodreads, a message pops up that states "Rating this book temporarily unavailable. This book has temporary limitations on submitting ratings and reviews. This may be because we've detected unusual behavior that doesn't follow our review guidelines."
A spokesperson for Goodreads declined to comment on the record, but did provide an update given by the website in October. The website said it launched the ability to temporarily limit submission of ratings and reviews on a book during times of unusual activity that violate guidelines, including instances of “review bombing.”
"This kind of activity is not tolerated on Goodreads and it diminishes the community’s trust in people who participate. We are currently in the process of removing ratings and reviews added during times of previous unusual activity that violate our guidelines," the update said.
"We are committed to ensuring the reviews on Goodreads are trustworthy, relevant and authentic for readers and authors. For that reason, Goodreads welcomes a wide variety of reviews—whether positive or negative—but prohibits reviews that are not relevant to the book, harass readers or authors, or attempt to artificially deflate or inflate the overall rating of the book," the update said.
Unlike Goodreads, Amazon did not pause reviews. Since Monday, there has been a large influx of reviews on the book. Almost all of them are either one star reviews or five star reviews. Many mention Vance's nomination.
Vance and his publisher did not respond to a request for comment.
Jones said the Columbus Metropolitan Library will continue to make strong attempts to make sure it gets as many copies of the book and to manage their holds.
“Customers are really interested in reading "Hillbilly Elegy." On Monday and Tuesday, we saw significant spikes in our customers wanting to check that particular book out, both digitally and physically," Jones said.
Jones said people should know that when books are in high demand, there is a 21-day period when people are allowed to have that book or e-book. Renewals are not allowed, so after 21 days it must be returned to the library so the people waiting for the book have a chance to pick up a copy.
Jones said if someone wants to obtain a copy, they should put a hold on it soon. She said the library is happy to help people get access to the book.
"Our open all philosophy just means that we have a lot of diverse materials in our collection, and we are always happy to make sure that we provide as many resources as we can to our community. And so we're really excited that in this particular moment in time, we have materials that people are interested in reading," Jones said.
