Alyson Rudd

‘’A woman alone could not be alone, it would appear. They all think they can own you, help you, pester you, intimidate you. Only when the trains were moving was she safely in a bubble of isolation, but she could not be in motion the whole day long. It was essential she stopped from time to time, maybe for an hour, maybe for three, to give a station her time, although if anyone asked why she would be sure of the reasoning. Her routine had not been decided by her. It had been decided for show more her. Most of what she did was done on instinct, after all, and where that came from, she did not know either. Her life held so little logic these days that sometimes she wanted to peer into the Tube tunnels and shriek into the darkness.
Is this all becoming untenable, she thought. What is it I am waiting for?’’

Two people who have gone through terrible moments and losses meet on the Tube A young woman who seems unable to stop her obsessive daily commuting and a young man who tries to leave the overwhelming feelings of loss aside. Over the course of a year, London becomes the finest setting for stories of grievance and death, of hope and love, of finding the strength to start anew in a beautiful contemporary novel that reads like a breath of fresh air.

The madness of the Underground is the ideal setting for a story that really stays with you, especially when you are a daily commuter. Rudd writes about the unexpected impact of a stranger in your life, the conundrum of family relations, friendship and love that comes out of nowhere. London and its unique vibe jumps out of the pages and becomes THE protagonist. After all, it is inevitable.

Make no mistake, though. This isn’t a fluffy romance, ‘’light’’ and naive and remote from reality. On the contrary. Rudd explores the themes of loss in all its forms. The loss of a loved one and the loss of every sense of purpose and destination. And it seems to me that the story poses two questions. Can we let go? Can we share our burden and accept that there may be someone out there who can help us as we can help them? I think that even to the most stubborn of us, the answer is right there. The story of Sylvie and Ryan is depicted through beautiful interactions that are direct, fresh and realistic. There are a few shocking moments that are given quietly and respectfully. My only issue was the ‘’cast’’ of the secondary characters. Apart from Paul, I found each and every one of them horrible for a number of personal reasons. Ed, Hana and Naomi take the cake. I couldn’t stand them.

What made me love this book was Rudd’s commentary on the way women are still viewed in our modern, all-progressive society. I connected with Sylvie instantly. I commute daily, spending over 2 hours going to my work and back, and I cannot count the times I had to change seats because of a weirdo (to put it mildly) man suddenly sitting beside me. I grabbed a wrist twice and I enjoyed it so much! Their look of being exposed and punished by a petite woman is always priceless. No one will defend us so self-defence lessons are mandatory. Six years worthing every penny!

You do not need drama and exaggerations when you have interesting main characters and a powerful storyline. Sometimes, life itself guide you and that’s all we need. Alyson Rudd’s writing is like a soft breeze that makes you dream.

My reviews can also be found on https://theopinionatedreaderblog.wordpress.com/ show less

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I am extremely happy and excited to be part of the blog tour for Eleven Lines to Somewhere by Alyson Rudd. Thank you to the team at HQ - for sending me a copy in exchange for an honest review. Check out the other book bloggers that are part of the tour as well:

Synopsis:

Everyone is searching for love. Sometimes we just take our own route to find it.

Ryan sees a young woman on the tube on his way to work, and he can't stop looking show more at her. Attracted and intrigued, he's set to find out more about this mysterious passenger that shares the tube with him.

Sylvie keeps travelling the underground, unable to leave for reasons unknown to Ryan. He hasn't been dating for ten years, when he was at university and the love of his life died.

But for some reason, he feels he needs to help Sylvie. In a world of missed opportunities and what-ifs, a connection has been made.

My Thoughts:

This is the second book I have read by Alyson Rudd, with the first one being The First Time Lauren Pailing Died. That book intrigued me, and when I saw Eleven Lines to Somewhere being published - I had to know and compare them.

At the beginning, I was intrigued, knowing what the synopsis is. We meet Ryan and Sylvie (separately), and we get a small glimpse into their lives. In the beginning, Ryan's story with his family and friends is more talked about. I liked getting to know Ryan, very slowly throughout the first half of the book. He is a very intriguing character himself, going through a personal time, as well as making very controversial decisions to get to know Sylvie better.

I liked Sylvie's story and her connection to the underground. It was very intriguing to me to read and understand how some moments in life can let us become something that we can't help but be. That a certain experience can cause such a need for Sylvie to action. I loved the psychological aspect of her characterisation, and how the trauma was handled.

Once Ryan and Sylvie got to know each other, the pace of the book changed, I felt. The pace was very slow, but the scenes moved very quickly in time.

Even though I loved Ryan and Sylvie as separate characters, I couldn't love them as a couple.

I felt that there was chemistry and romance missing, and somehow their connection to each other was based on the need to help the other one with their own trauma. For me, that being a single reason to love someone makes me think a person is in such a relationship to only feel better about themselves. Look - I helped someone, I am a better person now. But that's just my humble opinion.

There were a lot of side characters that had their own storylines - which I really enjoyed. A lot of drama and twists happened with them, which was quite enjoyable to read. Some characters in the end were thrown into the story abruptly, almost as if for convenience to the story line. But it worked well in the end.

I really enjoyed this story. Still a 4 star, but I enjoyed it more than The First Time Lauren Pailing Died. If you love contemporary books with a lot of characters, this will be a very good pick for you! show less

Wow. Just wow. I read this in a day, and not just because I borrowed my copy from the library! I'm still thinking about the characters now. One of the blurb reviews, I think, compares this to the film Sliding Doors, but the plot is much trickier than that.

When she is thirteen years old, Lauren Pailing dies for the first time, but then wakes up in hospital. Everyone and everything in her world is slightly different and she will have trouble with her knee for the rest of her life, yet that show more seems a small price to pay. Lauren grows up, goes to university in London, meets the man she will marry, moves in with him and finds out they are going to have a baby. All very normal. Except that this is just one of Lauren Pailing's lives. Somewhere out there in the universe is a world where Lauren did die and her mother was destroyed by grief; where she died but a second baby for her parents saved their lives; where her father's boss either goes missing or is a good friend of the family. And then Lauren wakes up in another life, with another family - only this time she has memories of the first, and second, time she died.

Apart from the cracking plot, which kept me reading until midnight, I loved the characters too. Lauren, all three of them, her father Bob, mother Vera, are beautifully drawn, in every universe. I found Bob's 'new' life hardest to read about, especially against the other 'what could have been' versions, but the slight changes in character were fascinating to follow. I have to admit, I had to mentally 'catch up' at the beginning of each chapter, however!

My only gripe - here she goes - are the throwaway references to worlds where home pregnancy test kits don't exist - or nobody knows what a cat is! Sure, maybe Lauren's childhood home might not have been built in a different version of her life, but come on, why these random exceptions? And I thought the attempt to explain what was going on via the physicist unnecessary too. I was perfectly content using my imagination to explain the wonderful imagery of the rips in time, or the 'sunbeams' that appear to Lauren.

Overall, though, a thrilling concept - a sort of positive version of The Seven Deaths of Evelyn Hardcastle - cleverly told by Alyson Rudd. show less

Eleven Lines to Somewhere had a premise that immediately intrigued me. I loved the idea of somebody (Ryan) seeing somebody (the girl he thinks of as Millie) on a tube train and being so instantly attracted to her that he can't stop thinking about her. It's all rather romantic, although almost bordering on stalking at times. I suppose it comes down to the fact that Ryan is a thoroughly lovely man who couldn't stalk to save his life. It's much more about a fascination with a woman that he show more finds not only beautiful but so elusive and captivating.

There are lots of strands to this story, just like the well-known image of the map of the underground. Not only do we follow Ryan and 'Millie', but also his friend Paul, his lodger Naomi, and his family play a part in the story. There are also sections about characters that seem to be no part of the story and yet obviously will have their time in the spotlight at some point. I did find some of these sections a bit disjointed, like they maybe needed to be tied in a bit more for them to feel like they had a purpose, but it did all come together in the end.

I messaged a friend as I was reading. She was further through than I was and I mentioned to her that I was find the story a bit confusing. She said that it was a story that definitely needed to find its rhythm and yes, just like the rhythm of the tube trains on the track, I agree that it's a book that needs a bit of concentration to get into the flow of it.

There was much that I enjoyed about Eleven Lines to Somewhere. I liked the relationship between Ryan and his beau, I loved his family - mother Grace, sister Hana and grandpa. I think this is a book that deals delicately with the various facets of grief and the ripples it casts through lives. I wasn't impressed by Naomi's behaviour and found her a really difficult character. I wanted to take to her but she disappointed me.

A story of connections, of random encounters, of loss and love, this is an unusual, almost ethereal story that didn't always completely work for me, but on the whole was an enjoyable and rewarding read. show less