Where Rainbows End

I loved this book. Reading reviews, I got the impression that a large proportion of people who enjoyed PS, I Love You didn't like this one as much. I had the opposite reaction. This was very much like the play Love Letters by A.R. Gurney, which I adore. It was fun to see the two main characters grow up and fall in love with each other without realizing that the other felt the same way, as well as having the worst timing ever. Thankfully, Ahern's book ended on a much happier note than Gurney's play. Highly Recommended.

I think I would have liked this more if it were shorter. I enjoyed most of the correspondence, but agonized over the missed connections, signals, and opportunities. Rosie and Alex became friends in grade school and corresponded through notes. They shared letters over the years, then DMs and texts as they grew older. Alex moves from Dublin to Boston to finish his final year of high school and then goes to Harvard, but Rosie's plans to come to Boston are upended after an event changes her life. The missed opportunities continue for years, and I just wanted them to speak to each other, vs. asking others for their opinions. Everyone around them knew they were meant for each other, they just couldn't see it.

Actual rating: 3,5. Before I start this review, I have a confession to make. I only wanted to pick up this book because - in the movie - the role of Alex was played by Sam Claflin (our beloved Finnick Odair in the Hunger Games). I really wanted to see that movie, because I just think Sam is gorgeous and u g h. But, I also kind of wanted to read the book first, to get to know the story a bit better. So when I saw it for only 7,95 at my local bookstore, I decided to buy it.

Where Rainbows End tells the story of Rosie Dunne, and Alex Stewart. They have been best friends since they were five, and they are inseparable. But then, Alex's parents move to Boston and - naturally - they take him with them. He finished high school there and goes show more onto Harvard to become a heart surgeon. Rosie promises to come there to study Hotel Management as soon as she's graduated. That is until she gets pregnant.

I was a bit confused at the size of this book, because I honestly thought the story happened over a period of a couple of years or so, maybe from their teens until their late twenties. But before picking up the book, I read a review on Goodreads that told me this book started at around Rosie's seventh birthday and ended around their fifties or something. A much longer period than I had expected, but still, I was interested in the story. It mainly consists of letters, emails, chat sessions, text messages and post cards send between not only Rosie and Alex, but their families and eventually their children as well.

I personally really liked the idea of this book, the different types of exchanges between Alex and Rosie. And later on their families, Rosie and Ruby, Katie (Rosie's daughter) and her best friend Toby and so on. It reminded me a bit of - I am going to say it - Illuminae, except without all the action/suspence and the spacey-wacey stuff of course. The way the book was composed made it so much easier to read in my opinion, and I really finished the 500 page book within three days.

There was one thing I didn't really like, and that was how - at age forty/fifty - Rosie still sounded a bit like a teenager to me. I don't know, maybe she did really change her writingstyle over the years, or maybe people just don't do that at all, but I felt like I was still reading about nineteen year old Rosie. Because I don't have that experience yet, I don't know if people really change their way of writing as they get older, but I do know that I write differently than I used to write when I was sixteen, so yeah.

In the end, I really liked Where Rainbows End but I have to admit I didn't love it. My main problem was that it was too long. Had it been told over a shorter period of time, I may have enjoyed it much much more!

If you're a lover or stories like Just One Day, Anna and the French Kiss, and Lobsters, but you want a more grown-up book, you should definitely check out this book!

My opinion on this book in one gif: show less

Sometimes, the events instigating the discovery of a good book isn’t exactly “word of mouth”. This is at least the 4th time I have come across an eclectic story I would have otherwise missed, if not for the wonders of the Internet and the almost retaliatory and abusive nature of movie trailers. I found Where Rainbows End by cycling through YouTube movie trailers, putting off, well, more important things. The movie, in case anyone was curious, is called Love, Rosie, which is coincidentally the United States title of Where Rainbows End.

Enough with the idiosyncratic back story though.

Where Rainbows End is by all accounts a rather generic story. Boy meets girl. Girl meets boy. They fall in love. All coupled by the fairly mundane twist show more that they are childhood friends. In theory, this book should be subsumed by clichés. Certainly, it looks like someone took two sheets of metal (our main characters) and welded them together with an acetylene torch (the ad hoc trope/cliché of boy/girl romance). And, depending on your particular feelings about industrial art and high school shop class, it almost makes it out unscathed except for some unfortunate business with an epilogue.

Ahern’s 2004 novel follows two best friends, Alex Stewart and Rosie Dunne, from their first meeting, when they are all of seven years old, through the end of their mid-50s. It follows their friendship as they grow up, go to college (in Rosie’s case get knocked up) and live their lives. Alex and Rosie are very much in love and just as oblivious to the reciprocal nature of their emotions. This minor detail (often referred to in my own life as a miscommunication of epic proportions) entwines their co-existence as perpetual best friends as Life conspires to keep them separate through such plot devices as children, one night stands, and inexplicable marriages to the wrong persons.

Where Rainbows End is told through a series of IM chats, emails, and letters. For the most part these exchanges are brief, centering around a myriad of different characters who support Alex and Rosie in their lives as friends and foils.

It is also most assuredly worth reading.

Full Review:
https://sypherhawq.wordpress.com/2015/02/07/book-review-where-rainbows-end-aka-l... show less

Great book, read in less than 24 hours. I was getting a little frustrated by the end at the stupity of the characters' misunderstandings....but that's what makes it so good! Highly recommended, especially if you've ever been in love with your best friend - though a little depressing, because they have to go through so much.

Written solely in the form of correspondences (letters, emails, online chats) Love, Rosie tells the story of Rosie and Alex over the span of 45 years. At first, I was unsure if I'd like this format, but I ended up thinking it worked really well. It allows you to get a glimpse of not only Rosie's and Alex's life/thoughts, but also those of their family and friends.

Alex and Rosie meet as young children and quickly become best friends. Their feelings for each other grow over the years, yet they never seem to leave the platonic stage of their relationship. At times I found this frustrating and wanted to yell at the characters "Just tell each other how you feel already!" So much heartache and insecurities could have been avoided if they show more had. The struggles they endured, the loss and the happy times, all felt very real and made the characters feel real too.

Perhaps the only complaint I have is that I felt the story dragged on. There were some conversations I found pointless or long winded. The journey could have been just as authentic and more impactful with less. show less

Such a cute book but frustrating at the same time. The thing that I found catchy was the writing style (letters, instant messaging, chat rooms etc) because it's different but at the same time there's narration in the epilogue ...oh man and the feels in the end... So after all, I was left with a smile and a thankful heart and I also consider watching the movie too.