IF YOU WERE ME

IF YOU WERE ME by Sheila O’Flanagan

 

Pages: 389

Date: 15/09/2014

Grade: 3.5

Details: Reading Group Read

            Book received from Headline Review

            Through New Books Magazine

Library

The blurb:

“Carlotta O'Keefe is happily engaged, and the wedding plans are coming together. She's clear about her future path, both personally and in her busy career. Maybe Chris doesn't make her heart race every time she sees him, but you can't have that feeling for ever. Can you?

Then, on a trip to Seville, Carlotta runs into Luke Evans. Luke broke her heart so long ago she'd almost convinced herself she'd forgotten him. Now, he's not that boy any more, but an attractive and intriguing man. And he can explain everything that happened way back when. Suddenly Carlotta's not so sure of anything any more.”

My thoughts:

This probably wasn’t the book for me. I liked the idea behind the story – two people who’d fallen in love as teenagers before being ruthlessly torn apart, reconnecting almost two decades later – but wasn’t overly impressed with the execution.

While I understand this is the story of Carlotta’s journey I still felt we saw too little of Luke Evans to make the premise believable. I know that first loves leave a lasting impression. I had no issue buying into Carlotta staying mildly obsessed with Luke over the years given the abrupt and unexpected separation years ago and the revelations afterwards. I didn’t even have a problem with her wanting to cancel her marriage because meeting Luke again made her doubt her feelings for her fiancé, Chris. In fact, that made sense. If it takes as little as one accidental meeting with an old flame and one passionate kiss to doubt whether or not you want to marry the man you’re engaged to, you are better off cancelling the whole affair. The only thing I did have a major issue with, was the ease with which she also allows her precious career to fall by the wayside after she meets Luke in Spain for the second time. She doesn’t know anymore about the man he’s become than she did at the start of the book and yet she throws her whole life upside down on the gamble he still resembles the boy she fell in love with as a teenager. It didn’t make sense and didn’t appear to fit the Carlotta I had gotten to know while reading the book.

I thought it was a shame the reader wasn’t given the opportunity to get to know Luke better. It might have been easier to suspend disbelieve and buy Carlotta’s change of heart and life if we’d been given a better idea of who and what exactly Luke was.

The story dragged for me at times. While I get what the author was doing; giving us a blow by blow account of a woman in her thirties reassessing her life and everything she’s held to be true up until then, I got a big bogged down by all the detail at times. In fact, the first 270 or so pages of this book all appear to be an introduction to a dramatic escalation of events. Suddenly everything happens at once, and while Carlotta’s break up with Chris was credible, the sudden implosion of her relationship with her best friend Sive seemed over the top and unrealistic. I guess it made perfect sense from a dramatic – turn the story on its head sort of – point of view, but it didn’t seem to fit the friendship they had until that moment and appeared to come out of nowhere. Just as what Sive did next, didn’t sit right with me and didn’t appear to add anything to the story either.

Anybody reading this review would be forgiven for thinking I didn’t like the book at all. And yet, that isn’t quite right either. As I said, I liked the idea behind the story. I enjoyed watching Carlotta slowly but carefully working out the priorities in her life. If You Were Me is a well written book and very easy to read (although it was equally easy to put down at times). Maybe it is just that I want more interaction between the two characters who will be the happy couple by the end of the book, while I’m reading the story. Or maybe it was just because I didn’t really warm to Carlotta.

Don’t allow my review to put you off. If you’ve read and enjoyed Sheila O’Flanagan books before, you will probably love this one too. If you’re a fan of Irish ‘women’s fiction’ this book will be right up your street. It just wasn’t quite up mine.

THINGS WE NEVER SAY

TITLE: THINGS WE NEVER SAY

AUTHOR: SHEILA O’FLANAGAN

Pages: 504

Date: 05/07/2013

Grade: 4

Details: Received from Headline Review

Own

Abbey Anderson’s life in San Francisco appears to be running smoothly, if not completely to her satisfaction, when everything gets turned upside down. It starts with her boyfriend walking out of her life. It is bad enough that he didn’t tell her he was leaving but left her a post-it note on the fridge instead. Discovering that he also failed to pay their rent, even though she’d given him her share, and that she is now to be evicted as well as expected to pay the full amount, means that not only is her heart broken, she is also in serious financial trouble as well as homeless.

Then Abbey is contacted by Irish lawyer Ryan Gilligan and discovers that everything she thought she knew about herself, her mother and her heritage has been wrong. A trip to Dublin brings her face to face with a grandfather she never knew she had who also dies shortly after welcoming her to his home. Her first meeting with her newly discovered family couldn’t have gotten off to a worse start. And things only get worse when her grandfather’s testament turns out to hold provisions that thoroughly shock all concerned.

Next thing Abbey knows she finds herself in the middle of a legal battle she wasn’t looking for and facing difficult decisions; decisions that won’t just affect her life but that of everybody around her too.

But maybe this upheaval is just what Abbey needed to get the right perspective on her own life.

This is one well written and very easy to read book. In fact, I would say it is probably the perfect book to spend a few warm summer days with. Having said that, I wasn’t completely charmed by it. While the story is interesting and layered, it also seemed a bit too long to me. I can’t help feeling that this book wouldn’t have lost its power if it had been about 100 pages shorter. The characters in this story are another thing I’m a bit ambivalent about. Some of them, like Abbey, were well rounded and experienced real development over the course of the story. That can’t be said for all of them though. Especially some of the Irish characters started off horrid and childish and stayed that way. And I wouldn’t have minded that, except that the bad behaviour appeared to get rewarded in the end.

On the other hand, I did like the way Irish history, and the Magdalene Laundries in particular, were used in this story and I loved Abbey and her mother. And while some of the Irish characters seemed to be irredeemable, others had managed to surprise me in a very pleasant way by the time I finished the story. And I have to admit that Sheila O’Flanagan writes a very good story. Despite my reservations I did find myself compelled to keep on reading. The words drove me forwards and the story had me questioning how the author would manage to bring the conflict she had created to a satisfying conclusion. I have to applaud her for doing exactly that and in a way that was both fairytale like and realistic.

Overall this was a light, interesting and very enjoyable read. In fact I would say it was “grand”.

SAVING CEECEE HONEYCUTT

TITLE: SAVING CEECEE HONEYCUTT

AUTHOR: BETH HOFFMAN

Pages: 375

Date: 07/01/2013

Grade:5-

Details: Large Print edition

Library

Cecelia Rose (CeeCee) Honeycutt is only twelve years old when her mother, Camille, dies in a terrible accident in 1967. By then she has been taking care of her psychotic mother for years while her father, a travelling salesman, spends less and less time at home. Camille who was born and raised in Georgia is deeply unhappy in Northern Ohio; so unhappy that eventually she rejects her everyday reality and lives her life as if it is 1951 and she has just won a Georgia beauty pageant. With her mother going around town in elaborate party dresses and a tiara in her hair, CeeCee has become the laughing stock among her peers. Without friends and with responsibilities beyond her years, CeeCee’s only support is Mrs. Odell an elderly neighbour.

After her mother’s dead CeeCee’s father decides that she would be better of living with her great-aunt Tootie in Savannah. Rejected by her father and forced to leave behind the only person to ever take care of her, CeeCee travels to her new home with a heavy heart and only Mrs. Odell’s words to give her strength:

“When a chapter of your Life Book is complete, your spirit knows it’s time to turn the page so a new chapter can begin. Even when you’re scared or think you’re not ready, your spirit knows you are.”

And Savannah really is a new page in CeeCee’s Life Book. From her aunt who never seems to stop and can’t think bad about anybody to Oletta Jones the house cook, from the eccentric neighbour looking for Nirvana and prone to taking naked midnight baths to the rude lady having an affair with a local policeman, the women in her new town welcome the lost girl with open arms and show her life beyond the sadness.

Over the course of a long, hot summer CeeCee learns about love, acceptance, prejudice, loyalty as well as rules to live by:

“Don’t grow up too fast darling. Age is inevitable, but if you nurture a childlike heart, you’ll never ever grow old.”

It will take CeeCee a while to get over the guilt she feels about her mother’s dead and the fear she has that she, like her mother, is destined to one day lose her mind. But when she does - thanks to all the strong and loving women in her life – she also finds the strength to forgive herself and accept that, even at her maddest moments, her mother loved her; a realisation that brings back words her mother once spoke:

“It’s how we survive the hurts in life that brings us strength and gives us our beauty.”

This is an emotional roller-coaster of a book. It is impossible not to have your heart break when you read about young CeeCee dealing with her mother’s madness and the pain and feelings of guilt she goes through after her mother dies. But it is equally impossible not to smile and even laugh at the antics the ladies in Savannah get up to occasionally and by the end of the book your heart will rejoice at CeeCee’s new found happiness and faith in the future.

In CeeCee Honeycutt Beth Hoffman has created a realistic and endearing character that will stay in your thoughts long after you finish the book. The author has managed to perfectly catch the thoughts and feelings of a twelve year old girl with the weight of the world on her young shoulders. CeeCee is a child who knows far too much about everything that can be wrong in the world and that comes across clearly.

CeeCee’s new home in Savannah is described with almost cinematic clarity; I could hear the voices, see the old houses, the gardens and taste the glorious food.

This is a beautiful and emotional story about love and survival with a realistic and wonderfully uplifting ending. This is a lovely read!