But Superbus is told that there is a single sentence in the library, that "contains everything" and that if discovered will cause an awakening of great power, allowing the wonders of the world to be revealed to him.

The book also details many of the historical writers that the narrator has discovered and becomes captivated upon at various times of her life; including Ann Quin, Elaine Showalter, Roald Dahl, Anais Nin, E.M. Forster and Anna Kavan.

Writing for The New York Times critic Naomi Huffman, referencing the book's place in the category of autofiction, a genre that may have been exhausted by previous works, states: "Checkout 19" suggests it perhaps hasn't yet been fully explored.

True, Bennett shares a similar biography to that of her narrator, but the life she describes is one blown open by imaginative writing, by the work other writers have fashioned from their own lives, and by the transformative and transportive nature of reading.

Regarding the author's unconventional style, with the protagonist's lengthy digressions and rich descriptions of literature, Nina Renata Aron, writing for The Los Angeles Times stated: "In the telling of a life lived through books, and in her own sometimes floridly erudite sentences, the deep magic of writing is revealed.