latest read - the book of tomorrow

Another from my collection of Cecelia Ahern.

This story revolves around a 16 year old girl names Tamara Goodwin who is a spoilt, rude and inconsiderate girl. Her "perfect" world was shaken to its core when her father committed suicide leaving behind huge debts that caused her mother and her to even lose the house they were living in. They both had to live in charity with her aunt and uncle in the suburbs. It is there that she learns the truth about herself.
The Book of Tomorrow is actually a diary which she found in a moving library. This diary writes itself. Entries are written by Tamara of what has happened the next day.
The build up of the mystery surrounding Tamara are well written. However, the ending and the final revelation of all the secrets happens in the last few pages of the book. I could have easily just read those last pages to solve everything with the book. 

latest read - The Gift

The Gift – Cecelia Ahern

DANG!

Lou Suffern dies in the end.

He was given a little time to speak to his wife and tell her that he loves her.

It's a story about a man who takes his family for granted and puts them last. There’s a little magic involved where if you take a certain pill given by Gabe, then you can present yourself at more than one place. So that helped Lou to be available to handle work and also be there for his family for any family events which tend to clash all the time with his work schedule.

“The Gift” is actually having the extra time after and also before his ultimate passing to let his family know that he loves them.

latest read - if you could see me now

Miss Ahern is one author I believe I have bought all her books to date. I am definitely a fan.



This is another unusual chic lit book by Miss Ahern - unusual because of who and what are involved in this story.

Of course, at the core of all her books, it is all about love - the best and worse of things.

This time around, the book tells from the perspective of a man who happens to have an unusual job.

Ivan, the narrator of the book, is an imaginary person, well, an imaginary man to be exact.

The book starts off telling about the life of Ivan, the imaginary friend of Luke. Luke is the nephew of Elizabeth Egan. Of course being an imaginary friend of Luke, only Luke is able to see him. Ivan tells that the whole purpose of an imaginary friend to help the person who can see them. So the fact that Luke can see him, thus his job was to help Luke.

Elizabeth is Luke's aunt. Why is Luke with his aunt rather than with his mother or father? Well, his mother, Saoirse, pronounced Seer-sha, is a bit of a bum - not able to take care of herself, not able to hold down a job, not able and not bothered. The father? Unknown.

Elizabeth was the reluctant mother of her sister's son seeing that even her father, Luke's grandfather, was also unable to take up the responsibility. Elizabeth, Saoirse and their father were all affected quite badly mentally by the absence of their mother/wife. The mental disability of her mother I think was passed down to her sister who seem to portray the same behaviour as their mother.


Being an adult, Elizabeth was not supposed to be able to see Ivan, an imaginary friend. But she did and Ivan although had an appearance of an adult, was clearly still mentally just a six year old boy. His infectious fun-loving innocence and spontaneity brought out the best in Elizabeth and in her enjoying his company and finally having a bit of fun herself after all these lonely years, Elizabeth did not notice that she was the only adult able to see Ivan.


Well as the story pans out, it was Elizabeth who needed the help. In helping Elizabeth, Ivan was also helping Luke.

In a nutshell, Elizabeth realized that the hurt she has been feeling was just not her own. Her father suffered just as much having her mother as his wife. Elizabeth always put her mother on a pedestal and her mother did no wrong but it was her mother who left them. Her mother was an alcoholic. Her father was left to care for two girls on his own. He tried and did what he thought was best. Ivan helped Elizabeth realize that her father had suffered just as badly as she has and that it is far better and so much more comforting to share the hurt with someone who understands the hurt rather than going at it alone.

The love story is between Elizabeth and Ivan of course. But this does not have the conventional ending. There was no death or cheating or anything of that sort. With Elizabeth now coming to terms with her life, Ivan is slowly becoming invisible to Elizabeth.

That's the life of an imaginary friend. They appear when they are really needed and they slowly make their exit when they know that the person they helped is in the right path.

latest read - a place called here

This is a story narrated by Sandy Shortt, a missing persons one-person agency, obsessed about finding things and people, who goes missing herself. In her quest to find a particular person, she finds that she ended up in a place called Here.

Here is a place where everything that goes lost ends up. This would include things, people and even voices and noises. Say for example you forget the sound of someone's laughter, then people at Here would suddenly here it in their atmosphere. It's kinda freaky and very Twilight-zone-ish. Here forms a community where these lost people build families and do everything to survive together including farming and trading. The only catch about Here is that everything in Here do not go missing and the people in Here cannot get out of Here. Everyone except Sandy, of course.

The main characters in the story: Dr Gregory Burton - boyfriend and psychiatrist since Sandy was eight, and Jack Ruttle - person obsessed with finding Sandy and finally do find her.

Anyway, to me, the author tries to engage into the fantasy realism to tell a simple story about personal recovery and discovery.

At the core, it is a story about noticing things which are here with you now rather than searching for things that are missing,to focus on the present and live in the present and not to delve into the past and things that are gone. More importantly,I believe the message is also to learn to let go of things that are holding you back.

We need to appreciate the things and the people that in our lives now, to acknowledge them, to accept them and also to celebrate them because if we were to suddenly lose them, we would forever regret not taking the chance. Life, as it is, is about taking chances, making mistakes and growing from all the experience.

The other message I gather from the book is that, Jack's tireless search reflects the fact that you must always have hope and look into the future even when things are extremely bad in your lives at the moment. Even when things are at the lowest point, always tell yourself that there is a future beyond this and you must rise up from this low.

You must never give up on what you are doing and always keep your faith even if you keep hitting a wall.

latest read - where rainbows end

I finished this book recently.

The author, Cecelia Ahern is the daughter of Ireland’s Prime Minister and the sister to Nicky of Westlife’s wife.

What was most interesting to me about the book is the method of which the storyline is conveyed.

Rather than the usual story telling, the life of Rosie Dunne is portrayed to the readers through letters, emails, online chat conversations either from instant messaging or in chat rooms and greeting cards for Christmases, birthdays and congratulatory. I've not read a book with the storyline told this way before. I found it fun and amusing. With our lives nowadays very much dependent on the Internet to stay connected and to get information, the book was interesting and a refreshing read.

Rosie Dunne and Alex Steward are best friends and each others’ confidant since they were both 7 years old but due to events in their respective lives, only finally married each other at the age of 50!

The turn of events in their lives were comical in a laugh-out-loud kind of way but of course with life, there were also sad episodes.

By the end of this book, I was left with a question:

Can a boy and a girl be just best friends without it developing into something more; without any of them developing feelings for the other?

I am reminded of another story from the movie, My Best Friend’s Wedding, which is also about boy-girl best friends. This time though, Julianne (played by Julia Roberts) after finding out that her best friend, Michael (by Dermot Mulroney), was going to marry someone else, realized, whether intentionally or not, that she has always been in love with him.

So, can a boy and a girl be just best friends without it developing into something more than friends?

Will physical attraction start to develop when they share so much of each others’ daily lives, laughed and cried about every little thing together for years and years and know each other so well? I mean, it was, at one point, some common interests that drew/attracted one person to the another.

I personally think that it requires a high degree of self-awareness and self-refrain in order for a boy and a girl to be and remain best friends and only friends.

Not many can do that...

Let's look out to the horizon while we ponder...