Dear Lucy Silchester, You have an appointment for Monday 27th July 2011.
Yours sincerely Life.
Lucy Silchester has received an appointment card. Actually, she's been
invited along a few times to this appointment, but she keeps brushing the gold
embossed envelope under the shag pile carpet. She's taken her eye off the ball
and has busied herself with work (a job she doesn't love), helping out friends,
fixing her car, feeding her cat, seeing her family and devoting her time to
their life dramas. But Lucy is about to find out that this is one appointment
that she can't miss. And she can't escape it either. Her Life is about to catch
up with her in the most surreal of ways.
We’re
nearing the end of June, which means I read another novel for this month’s book
discussion for The New Book Club (@thenewbookclub). I had the honour of
choosing our next book, and I decided to go for one that had been lying on one
of my book shelves for quite some time already, but somehow I hadn’t found the
time to actually pick up and start reading; ‘The Time of My Life’ by
Cecelia Ahern. Cecelia Ahern has been one of my favourite authors since I read ‘P.S.
I Love You’ and I have no idea why it took me so long to actually read ‘The
Time of My Life’, because I always buy her new releases as soon as I can. So,
this was a great opportunity to finally pick up this novel and dive into it!
Lucy
Silchester has developed the tendency to ignore most things in her life: her
job (she doesn’t hate it, doesn’t love it), her apartment (it’s tiny, but it’ll
do), her family (she has probably used every possible excuse to get out of any
kind of family gathering), her friends (she never even stays until the end of
get-togethers, because what’s the point?)... However, one day Lucy is
confronted with something she can’t possibly ignore, no matter how much she
might want to: an invitation to a meeting with her Life. The same one she has
been busy ignoring for the past few years, while hiding herself from others behind
a framework of lies. Lucy will have to face the facts and make some changes,
with no one but her own Life by her side to guide her along the way.
Just
like most of her other novels, Cecelia Ahern has added a touch of magic to ‘The
Time of My Life’, as already becomes apparent in the novel’s description. The
idea of your own Life actually walking around on the earth somewhere and when
things aren’t going the way they should, you being invited to have a meeting
with your own Life... I can honestly say that is something that had never even
crossed my mind before I read this novel. But it is at the same time an idea I
love and I once again applaud Cecelia Ahern for her imagination and impressive
writing skills to come up with such a clever idea and executing it in such an
enchanting way. At the beginning of the novel, I didn’t particularly warm to
Lucy. I thought she was a bit annoying, but as the novel progressed, Lucy
changed and I really liked this development of character. I enjoyed the mix of
characters around Lucy (Life/Cosmo Brown and Don in particular) and I really
felt myself warming to the story as it continued.
It took
me a bit of time to really get into the story, longer than usually with Cecelia
Ahern novels. However, I really enjoyed this novel and the unique concept
behind it. I think Cecelia Ahern’s novels have to be your ‘cup of tea’, and you
have to believe in a bit of magic, if you really want to enjoy them. Yet, since
most of her novels end up on the best-sellers lists over and over again, I
think I can safely say she has a large fan base who loves her specific style of
writing and ideas. ‘The Time of My Life’ is a wonderful tale that is funny, has
a touch of romance, and turns something ordinary like the choices we make in
life and how they define us, into something special. This novel is a magical,
warm and thought-provoking read, and after reading it I know I will continue to
secretly hope to find an invitation from my own Life in the mail one of these
days!
Rating:
8/10
