Schitt’s Creek, the perfect pandemic binge-watching show has just ended, and the final season brought me so much more joy than seems possible during this time. I’ve been watching Schitt’s Creek from the first season, and seeing the way the main characters and the community have grown and evolved has been so gratifying – a real panacea to all the bad news that seems to be a constant presence in our daily lives in 2020.

If you haven’t seen the television show Schitt’s Creek, let me briefly explain why I think it is worthy of a blog post. Created by father and son duo Dan and Eugene Levy, Schitt’s Creek is about the Rose family, a rich, socialite family that goes bankrupt and has to turn to the only asset that wasn’t seized – a town called Schitt’s Creek (which I always assume is somewhere in Ontario but is never explicitly stated), purchased by one of the family members as a gag gift. With this purchase, the family is now able to live in the sole roadside motel in town, due to mechanics that I never really understand and to be honest, don’t care to because it ‘s irrelevant to enjoying the show. In the early seasons, the show is able to mine quite a bit of comedy out of these characters interacting in a very small setting for the first time in what seems like years – their living space is made up entirely of two adjoining motel rooms, and brother and sister have to share a room. And at the beginning of the series, none of the four Roses have anything resembling a practical skill or anything that might see them employed (excepting the patriarch, former video store magnate Johnny Rose – he must have had some business acumen at some point), and so they spend a LOT of time at home.

You would be forgiven for thinking that the show would consist solely of the interactions of this rich, clueless family and the backwoods characters that would live in a town called ‘Schitt’s Creek’. And while the Rose family is initially incredibly selfish and materialistic, that wouldn’t be a very enjoyable show to watch for hours on end. No, the show develops some real, genuine characters, both in the Rose family and in their fellow residents. And the town Schitt’s Creek turns out to be an open-minded utopia, where the Roses are easily given a second chance and where all the unlikely inhabitants have their own, equally important backstory. I turn to episode after episode as much to hear Moira’s ridiculous accent and Alexis merely saying her brother’s name as I do to follow the friendships and relationships that the Rose family developed over time. The contrast between the beginning of the series, when the Roses learned that they had lost their lifelong friends due to their drop in status, and the end of the series, is something that makes me cherish my own relationships with my friends and family. So many of the characters found their soulmates, platonic or otherwise – David especially with his relationship with Patrick and his friendship with Stevie. The way that the Roses become a real family, after seeming like almost strangers in the first few episodes of the season, makes me miss being able to see my own family. And watching how the Roses all use their newfound skills to develop the community they live in – and how their community, after some initial trepidation, welcomes them – is inspiring. I know personally that with everything going on right now, I often feel like I don’t have the skillset to really help in the world – but a few episodes of Schitt’s Creek reminds me that it’s enough to try my best and make a difference for my friends and my family – and help with the efforts that we at the library are doing for the community.

In the same vein, I’m having a very hard time reading books that are too heavy, too pessimistic. While my reading tastes generally used to lean to long, convoluted tales of hardship, I’m finding that I’m now drawn to tales of community building and personal improvement (and a bit of romance if it’s not too much trouble). With that in mind, I’ve selected a few books on Hoopla that seem to fit this need, if this is what you’re looking for as well. Because in real life, what will get us through our current crisis is people looking to assist our community using whatever we have available to us – and things like checking in on our family and friends with impromptu video calls and bakery deliveries can make all the difference.

Get a Life, Chloe Brown by Talia Hibbert. Chloe Brown is has just survived a near death experience and needs to change her life for the better. She’s tired of being safe, and she has a list to help her ‘get a life’. She enlists her sexy, mysterious neighbour to help – can they help each other become the best possible versions of themselves?

Pride, Prejudice, and Other Flavours by Sonali Dev. Follow the exploits of the Raje family, an immigrant Indian family descended from royalty. In this retelling of Pride and Prejudice, Trisha Raje, an acclaimed neurosurgeon, has to contend with her very complicated family, her job, and up-and-coming chef DJ Caine, with whom she can’t help but clash.

The Unlikely Adventures Of The Shergill Sisters by Balli Kaur Jaswal. The Shergill sisters have never gotten along. But when their mother’s deathbed wish is that they make a pilgrimage together to India to carry out her final rites, the sisters are forced to come together and truly discover what sisterhood, and family, means to them.

Welcome to the Pine Away Motel and Cabins by Katarina Bivald. Did you miss the motel lifestyle? Visit the Pine Away Motel, a ramshackle roadside motel with heart and community to rival the Rosebud Motel. This title is part of the hoopla Bonus Borrows collection, which means that borrowing this title does not use any of your monthly hoopla borrows.

Woefield Poultry Collective by Susan Juby. Prudence Burns has just inherited Woefield Farm from her uncle and doesn’t have the skills to actually make use of it. But when the bank is about to foreclose on the farm, Prudence must rely on her wits and her eccentric neighbours to save Woefield.