Posted By Adam White on Dec 7, 2019 | 2 comments

As I confessed a few months ago, despite building numerous LEGO® sets, I’ve never built one of the LEGO Creator Expert Modular sets. I’ve admired them greatly from afar, so I know they are highly detailed, use elements in usual ways and can be connected together to create an ever growing LEGO street. The main reason for me not getting them is due to a lack of space I have to display them, plus I love to collect so if I have one, I’ll want them all. But when you get offered the latest Modular to review, you don’t pass up the chance. So I’ve officially popped by Modular cherry and these are my thoughts on the latest addition to the popular range – the Bookstore. A two part building, which features a quint bookshop on one side and a townhouse on the other. So how did my first LEGO Modular build fair? Let’s find out.

Product Description

Recreate the charm of a backstreet bookshop that you might discover in any quaint village or town with this LEGO® Creator Expert collectors’ toy. The 3-storey bookshop and adjoining modular town house building is filled with fun building techniques and surprising details, including a display window, reading nook and an open-out design. Collectors will love to display this big 2,504-piece LEGO set proudly alongside their other modular buildings. An ever-growing modular house collection The LEGO Creator Expert Modular Buildings series is a premium collection of advanced, interconnecting buildings featuring authentic designs from around the world. LEGO sets that bring passion to life LEGO Creator Expert building sets are for adults and teenagers with a passion. From authentic buildings and classic cars to other objects of desire, Creator Expert advanced LEGO sets offer a world of nostalgia, escapism, self-expression, pure enjoyment and surprise.

• Set Name: Bookshop
• Set Number: 10270
• Pieces: 2504
• RRP: £149.99/$1599.99/159.99€
• Measurements: measures over 29cm high, 25cm wide and 25cm deep
• Minifigures: Bookshop Owner, Customer, two townhouse residents & little boy
• Availability: LEGO Brand Store, LEGO.com & LEGO retailers

The Build

Most of the recent LEGO Modular buildings have consisted of a single structure, built upon a 32×32 baseplate, but the Bookshop is made up of two 16×32 baseplates. So it has the same footprint has other sets but can be connected in two different ways. You first begin by constructing the Bookshop. This consists of two floors and a loft space. The ground floor is where the Bookshop is located and features a counter with till point and a couple of shelves of books. There is a nice tiled floor to the shop and an amazing staircase, which leads to the second floor.

The second floor is living area, here you’ll find a lovely little Grandfather clock, a recliner chair and that staircase continues. This is such a simple collection of elements but the colours used and how they are constructed add a great amount of detail. The second floor also leads out to a small outdoor balcony area, where you’ll find a couple of chairs and plants to attend. I assume this is a living space as opposed to a second floor of the shop, where customers can go chill and read a book.

The final level of the Bookshop side of the build is tiny loft apartment space, the stairs from the previous levels lead up to the here and it can be accessed by removing the back section of the very top of the building. It is a very small area but there is enough room for a single bed and a terrarium, which is home to a cute little chameleon. This is a different colour to the one first seen in the most recent LEGO Minifigures series and matches the teal colour used across the set.

As mentioned above the set consists of two separate buildings, so the second part of the build is a completely different building. This is a small townhouse apartment, which sits lower than the Bookshop building and features a lovely mix of teal, white and dark blue bricks. Although it’s a little shorter than the first building, the townhouse still features three floors and a baloney section. At the base of the building is a small basement area, which has a couple of fun features. In particular a tiny mouse trap loaded with cheese and a set of ladders, should anyone lose say, a plane in a tree.

This is topped by a cosy living room space, which happens to be one of the most detailed of all the rooms. It has a nice little fireplace, a display cabinet, a lounger chair in the bay window and a table ready for afternoon tea. I like how the cabinet is partly built into the walls of the set and the simple wall-mounted coat hanger rail near the front door. There is even a very small cupboard under the stairs, shame there isn’t anything hidden in there such as a mouse to tie into the basement, but hey it LEGO you can add your own. As with the Bookshop, a much more muted set of stairs flow from each room, starting in the basement and running into this living area and leading up small bedroom.

The upper floor is again quite small and but features a slightly bigger bed, which is much more ornate, in fact a surprising amount of elements go into constructing each of the beds in this set. Next to the bed is a wooden chest of draws, topped with a lamp and a simple plant. Who knew a 1×1 round brick with a new leave element and flower could look so good. Saying that, there are a number of plants in this set, each using simple combinations of elements but they all look great. To access this room, the rear wall section can be removed. This section includes a small outdoor area, with a great slanted window element used to create a skylight, there may not be any new elements but there are certainly some good ones used and great recolours.

For me the real draw of the set in the exterior of both buildings. The use of elements and their placement results in some great looking LEGO architectural features. The Bookshop has a great looking stone archway surrounding its doorway and the flat curved plates framing the highest window look equally as impressive. Moving across to the townhouse building a here, you’ll find plenty more intricate details and interesting use of elements. I really like the small two tier steps to the front door, with black coloured vines creating a fancy looking railing for them. Stacks of the new candle element surround the bay window on the lower floor and the equal sloped wedges add a nice visual flare to the windows and doorway. One of my favourite parts of this section of the build is the tiled roof. These were a little fiddly to build but the resulting look was certainly worth the effort.

Another thing I like about this set is the lack of stickers, every detailed piece is printed. With printed parts including the Bookshop signage, the number above the townhouse doorway as well as a couple of pictures and newspaper inside the set. The best of the printed pieces has to be the Moby Brick book cover. It’s just a shame there are not more of these fun little easter eggs. Even if it meant there would be some stickers used, it would have been nice to have a little more of this sort of detail.

Finally I must mention the lovely tree outside the Bookshop. As the shops name suggest this is a Birch Tree and its autumnal state means the white bark of the truck mixtures extremely well with the orange and yellow leaves of Fall. Here you’ll also find a sweet little bluebird nesting in a repurposed furry neck collar used on the Kraven The Hunter Minifigure from the LEGO Marvel sets. The tree nicely ties the whole set together and adds to the visual flare of the entire set.

The Minifigures

The set contains five Minifigures, which consist of residents, a shop owner and a little boy with his model plane. Up until recent set, the mini folk which inhabit the Modular sets, were classic looking with a simple smile expression. The latest sets make use of the many expressive faces seen on numerous Minifigures. So they are very much like those featured in the LEGO City line. There is a nice spread of character to bring the set alive but they are all fairly generic All of them apart from the older gent have alternate faces, with the young boys grimace being the best. The designer of the set based some of the Minifigures on his parents, which you can learn more about here.

Overall

When I first opened the box from Billund, I was a little underwhelmed. It didn’t look as fun as the Garage or Diner. But then I started the build and I instantly get why people love these sets so much. The details and build techniques used throughout the set are very clever. The smallest of elements can make a big visual impact, especially on the exterior of both buildings. The rear of the building could have been fleshed out with a little more detail and the side of the building are very plain as expected, but it’s the front of the set you see the most. Sure some of the rooms are also a little sparse and the Bookshop lacks a few actual books but the rest of the set provided an interesting and engaging build. As I’ve not built any past Modular sets it’s a little difficult to compare this to anything else, but for my first experience of the range, I will definitely build future releases. I have already started to look at past sets, with the Palace Cinema next on my list and the Diner on the way. And so it begins……

Set Snapshot

Pros:

• Good use of parts
• Unique architectural features
• No stickers
• Great fun to build

Cons:

• Many of the rooms are sparse
• Bookshop doesn’t look much like a shop inside
• Lacks fun Easter Eggs of other sets

This set was provided to BricksFanz by the LEGO Group for purposes of review. The thoughts within this review are that of BricksFanz and do not reflect those of the LEGO Group. Providing the set for free, does not guarantee a favourable opinion of the set.

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