Tag: Cecelia Ahern

Love, Rosie by Cecelia Ahern- A Rant…

Posted February 25, 2013 by Rowena in Discussions | 1 Comment

There will be major spoilers from the book in this rant, so this is your warning.

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This month’s book club pick (for my offline book club, that is) is Love, Rosie by Cecelia Ahern.  I haven’t read this book in ages, I re-read it a few years ago and loved it.  But because I read so much, I needed to do another re-read before my book club meeting so that I could refresh my memory. This time around, I didn’t love it nearly as much as I used to.  (This seems to be a thing for me because I had the same thing happen while I was re-reading The Duke & I by Julia Quinn for Book Binge’s book club discussion next month)

Anyway, if you haven’t read this book before, this book follows Rosie Dunne throughout her life.  Well, really it follows the course her friendship with her best friend, Alex, takes throughout their entire lives.

Their letter writing started when they were both 7 years old.  I loved those letters.  The letters between the two kids are too funny for words.  I kept laughing with each passing page as they talked about teachers with bad breath, getting caught writing letters, being grounded for doing stupid things and just all around funny kid things. Their letters were such great fun to read. But then they started growing up.

And the letter writing continued.

But on top of the letters, there are now instant messages shared between them and their siblings, newspaper articles announcing big announcements and in between all of that, feelings start creeping up on them and misunderstandings. As obvious as it is to the reader that Alex and Rosie love each other, it’s not obvious to the both of them.

Oh, they love the hell out of each other but the timing is never right and crap happens and they keep right on missing each other.

At first, it was heart breaking.  My heart broke like twelve times while reading this book. The first couple of times that I read this book, I didn’t mind it. But this time around? I wanted to choke the both of them out.  I’m talking grab their necks with my hands and squeeze….and squeeze some more.

Rosie has a spunky personality.  She doesn’t mince words when she’s talking to Alex.  She says what she means and that was one of the things that I liked most about her. But when it came to telling Alex how she feels?  She just wouldn’t do it.

You guys, they had a silence.

Everyone (well everyone who reads romance novels) wants to experience that silence with someone but it doesn’t always happen.  I’m sure it almost never happens. But Alex and Rosie had a silence…and they both felt it so as best friends, wouldn’t you talk about that damn silence?  They were so open about every other thing in their lives so why not that?

I get that the timing was totally off because Alex was already in a relationship but Alex, you big dummy…when you have a silence like THAT with someone that is NOT your woman, that should be a huge sign that you’re probably marrying the wrong girl.  I mean, seriously.

And then when Alex writes the letter and it never gets to her?  You’re going to let a cheating bastard of a man punk you out of telling YOUR BEST FRIEND how you really feel? You really think that Rosie (YOUR BEST FREAKING FRIEND) is better off with that cheating scumbag?  You’re really going to just leave her to her life without telling her the truth? SHE’S YOUR BEST FRIEND, DUMBASS!

I love a good romance story as much as the next person but holy goodness, not one that is 50 years in the making…and then that ending? WHAT THE FREAKING HELL KIND OF ENDING WAS THAT?  After all of that shit that you put us through with this story, that’s how you’re going to end their damn story?

So I’m assuming it was Alex that was knocking on the door…but how do we know? I mean, we know what assuming gets you, right?  He didn’t write a letter to Rosie telling her that he was on his way, that he’s sorry that he wasted so many years of bad relationships and more kids from different women.  She doesn’t write him to tell him that she’s sorry for being such a dumb ass for most of their lives and that it should have been her the whole time.  She just answers the door and says, “You.”  and then it’s the end.

WTF?

But you know what?  Reading Katie’s letters to Alex’s first wife Sally when she was just a wee lass herself almost made up for all of the crap that Alex and her Mom put me through with this book.  I laughed a lot while reading those letters.

I used to love the hell out of this book but somewhere along the way, I got mad…at both of these characters and I needed to vent.

Anyone read this book? Thoughts? Did you like it or love it?  Did Rosie drive you nuts? Did you want to bash Alex’s head in from time to time?  Please tell me that I’m not alone.


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Review: Love, Rosie by Cecelia Ahern.

Posted November 8, 2011 by Rowena in Reviews | 4 Comments


Main Character: Rosie
Love Interest: Alex
Series: None
Author: Website|Facebook|Twitter|Goodreads

Sometimes you have to look at life in a whole new way . . .

From the bestselling author of PS, I Love You comes a delightfully enchanting novel about what happens when two people who are meant to be together just can’t seem to get it right.

Rosie and Alex are destined for one another, and everyone seems to know it but them. Best friends since childhood, their relationship gets closer by the day, until Alex gets the news that his family is leaving Dublin and moving to Boston. At 17, Rosie and Alex have just started to see each other in a more romantic light. Devastated, the two make plans for Rosie to apply to colleges in the U.S. She gets into Boston University, Alex gets into Harvard, and everything is falling into place, when on the eve of her departure, Rosie gets news that will change their lives forever: She’s pregnant by a boy she’d gone out with while on the rebound from Alex. Her dreams for college, Alex, and a glamorous career dashed, Rosie stays in Dublin to become a single mother, while Alex pursues a medical career and a new love in Boston. But destiny is a funny thing, and in this novel, structured as a series of clever e-mails, letters, notes, and a trail of missed opportunities, Alex and Rosie find out that fate isn’t done with them yet.

From the gifted author of PS, I Love You comes this charming, romantic, addictively page-turning novel that will keep readers laughing and guessing until the very last page.

I’m going to shake things up around these parts for today. I started this blog to focus on my YA reviews and reviews for the chick lit books that I read. I haven’t reviewed very many chick lit titles but I’m going to review one today.

This book brought out all of the emotions inside of me. I laughed, I cried and I was frustrated all the while that I was reading this book. But through it all, I loved it.

I loved getting to know both Rosie and Alex through their life time of memories. Watching them grow up from the young children and then through their young adult and then adult lives, watching them always miss each other seriously brought on the angst. Cecelia Ahern did a wonderful job of making me connect with both Alex and Rosie. Seeing the trouble that they got into when they were younger and then seeing where both of their lives took them (in different directions) made for such a wonderfully engaging story that I just couldn’t get enough of.

I love reading stories about best friends that fall in love and this was one of those stories. I don’t even want to tell you how long it took them to finally get things right but when I closed the book, I was so freaking glad that it ended the way that it did that I smiled for a good hour or so afterward. This book really packs an emotional punch and there are lots of highs and lots of lows. There were times when I wanted to smack the heck out of both Alex and Rosie because all of the miscommunication and all of the missed opportunities literally broke my heart but Ahern picked up the pieces of my heart and went about putting it back together again and all was well when it ended.

I really, really enjoyed this book. It was one of those books that will forever be on my keepers shelf. Alex and Rosie are characters that I know will stay with me for as long as I read, they’re memorable characters that you won’t be able to stop yourself from loving. Rosie was a riot and Alex was just so freaking good that I know this is one of those books that I’ll re-read and re-read over and over again. Yeah, it was that good for me.

..and that’s your scoop!

Buy the book: B&N|Amazon|Book Depository
Book cover and blurb credit: http://barnesandnoble.com


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Review: If You Could See Me Now by Cecelia Ahern.

Posted November 24, 2007 by Rowena in Reviews | 3 Comments

Review: If You Could See Me Now by Cecelia Ahern.Reviewer: Rowena
If You Could See Me Now by Cecelia Ahern
Publisher: Hyperion
Publication Date: January 9th, 2007
Genres: Contemporary Romance, Fantasy
Pages: 306
Add It: Goodreads
Amazon | Barnes & Noble | The Ripped Bodice | Google Play Books
three-stars

Readers and critics alike adore Cecelia Ahern for her lighthearted yet insightful stories about modern women and their often unusual situations. In If You Could See Me Now, she takes that theme a step further, offering us a heroine who is entirely believable, and the new man in her life who is, well, slightly less so.

Elizabeth Egan's life runs on order: Both her home and her emotions are arranged just so, with little room for spontaneity. It's how she counteracts the chaos of her family -- an alcoholic mother who left when she was young, an emotionally distant father, and a free-spirited sister, who seems to be following in their mother's footsteps, leaving her own six-year old son, Luke, in Elizabeth's care. When Ivan, Luke's mysterious new grown-up friend, enters the picture, Elizabeth doesn't know quite what to make of him. With his penchant for adventure and colorful take on things large and small, Ivan opens Elizabeth's eyes to a whole new way of living. But is it for real? Is Ivan for real?

If You Could See Me Now is a love story with heart -- and just a touch of magic.

I bought this book a few months ago (okay a lot of months ago) and am just getting around to reading it because, well…something about this book put me off after I bought it, something I didn’t know when I bought it, something that even though it bothered me, it didn’t really take away from the story.

You see, I thought this book would be a romance between Elizabeth Egan and her imaginary friend, Ivan…but it wasn’t. Not, really anyway. You see, this book is about Elizabeth Egan and her journey to finding herself, her learning how to feel again and to …live again. She went through some stuff as a child with her Mother and she’s lived her adult life making sure that all sense of light, life and happiness was taken out of her life. She’s very strict about living in reality and not fantasy. She’s raised kids that don’t belong to her as a child and she’s found that she’s still raising kids that don’t belong to her now, all these many years later, as an adult.

Enter Luke’s imaginary friend, Ivan.

Luke is Elizabeth’s nephew and her adopted son, I guess you can say and he’s got an imaginary friend named Ivan. Nobody can see Ivan but Luke and at first it drives Elizabeth crazy because she has driven out all sorts of dreaminess and escapism out of her life and she will not stand by and let her nephew grow up to believe in fairy tales and dreams and be left with disappointment and cynicism.

To put it plainly, Elizabeth has a ginormous stick up her ass and she needs help digging that crap out.

That’s where Ivan comes in.

After a little while, Ivan who can’t be seen by anyone but Luke is now seen by his cynical aunt, Elizabeth and he forms a friendship with this very rigid woman and as time goes on, they begin to grow closer and closer and then as with all things adult, they start falling for each other.

Yeah, I know…you’re thinking, this is impossible, it can’t possibly amount to anything with Ivan, not being..real.

But the things Ivan brought to Elizabeth’s life made me sigh because if anyone needed to lighten up and enjoy life, the life that was passing her by, it was Elizabeth and it was good to see her walls disappear layer by layer with help from Ivan.

This book was straight up mushy fluff but I enjoyed it a lot. It reminded me a Tim Burton movie, one with lots of color and character, I really enjoyed it. My romantic heart got over the fact that nothing could ever come of Elizabeth’s relationship with Ivan and it soared when Elizabeth finally succeeded in sticking her ground and facing her fears and to see her stop running from life was really cool.

I hated the environment that Luke was growing up and at the end, though it wasn’t the kind of environment I was completely happy with, I was still happy at the lengths Elizabeth came to where Luke was concerned. I thought Luke was such a cutie little kid and I enjoyed him very much. I enjoyed seeing Elizabeth’s hardened heart soften toward the people in her life and I loved seeing her come around to loving the place she loathed so much and this book was just a wistful, dreamy story that made me smile when I finished it.

It’s not my favorite book of Cecelia Ahern but I did enjoy it. It’s not a romance novel, it’s more of a chick lit book and I’m glad that I finished it. This isn’t a book that you have to rush out and buy and devour because though I enjoyed the story as a whole, the book was a bit wordy for my tastes and it dragged in some parts but if you stick with it, you’ll like the story if you keep telling yourself, this isn’t a romance but a chick lit book….don’t forget that because if you’re looking for a romance in this book, you’ll be disappointed.

I loved the characters and I really enjoyed, Ivan. This book ended the way it needed to end and I can totally see this as a chick flick…it’s good stuff.

Grade: 3 out of 5

three-stars


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