Comedy

On the surface P.S. I Love You and The Book of Tomorrow share one thing, the author Cecelia Adhern. However both stories are about the same concept--moving past grief to living again. The Book of Tomorrow exchanges a young widow for a mother and daughter grieving after the husband dies and Ahern's other notable device, that of the husband writing to his grieving wife, is exchanged for the daughter reading entries seemingly written in her own hand dated for the future.

Readers may have trouble liking Tamara as she's what everybody hates about teenagers--selfish, kind of disrespectful and unable to occupy her time without fancy gadgets. She also tends to push blame on others'--it's not her fault she's bored, it's her mother's for making them leave the city. It's not her fault her mother is sick, maybe if others took notice she'd be better. As things unfold she becomes a more relatable person, but at first she grates on the nerves.

A sense of the sinister pervades the book, as Tamara reads the Book of Tomorrow and tries to piece together what exactly is going on in the sleepy town. There's tension, but a whole lot of suspense; anyone who reads or watches the mystery genre will guess pretty quickly who to trust and not, but this book is more about how Tamara gets to the ending resolution much more than the ending itself.

Ahern's lush detailing is mostly misplaced here; Tamara will wax poetic about the countryside or buildings in one breath and then bemoan being stuck in such a place the next. There's no appreciation in Tamara's words, so the prose falls flat at times.

This was a quick read, and the lack of a romance plot made for a refreshing read about a teenager dealing with some otherworldly happenings (albeit of the tamer magical sort). Not necessarily a feel good book, but in the end it was quick and uncomplicated, which on a cold winter's night was certainly a welcome thing. ( )

meh. It's as if the author had two books she wanted to write, but didn't have enough material for one or the other so she married them together. On one hand, a teenage girl finds a mysterious book that tells her the future (where or why this book was never ever explained). On the other hand, there is all this drama and secrecy of her family, which reveals itself to her leaf by leaf. Actually this part is a pretty good story; I just didn't see what the mysterious diary had to do with any of it. ( )

Tamara Goodwin had altijd alles wat haar hartje begeerde. Ze groeide op in een groot huis met een eigen zwembad, een tennisbaan en een kast vol dure kleren. Nooit hoefde ze ergens over na te denken, laat staan over de dag van morgen. Maar dan overlijdt haar vader, zijn gezin achterlatend met torenhoge schulden. Tamara en haar moeder zijn gedwongen hun luxe leventje op te geven en in te trekken bij familie op het platteland. Tamara kan hier moeilijk wennen. Terwijl haar moeder druk bezig is met het verwerken van haar eigen verdriet en de rest van de familie zich vooral op haar moeder stort, glipt Tamara ertussenuit om te dwalen in de omgeving. Ze ontdekt een oud kasteel en raakt bevriend met een jongen die een rijdende bibliotheek beheert. In deze bibliotheek valt haar oog op een oud leren boek. Ze neemt het mee, niet wetende dat dit boek haar leven voorgoed zal veranderen.

fiction novel ( )