The Gift

This was my first Cecilia Ahern, would you believe, and I wasn't sure what to expect. A light chick lit read, a happy ending, a little romance, a Christmas moral? Well, that last part was there for the taking, but I couldn't have been more wrong about the rest! Instead, what Ahern offers is a thoughtful portrayal of a family in meltdown, with a twist of magic that somehow never overwhelms the message of the story.

Lou Suffern is a workaholic. All day, every day, he slogs at his office, skipping from one meeting to another, from one task to the next, skilfully juggling everything and everyone in a feverish attempt to win the position - and the office - left vacant when his colleague had a breakdown. At night, he takes to the bars and show more restaurants of Dublin, cavorting with clients and flirting with women. The only thing he can't bring himself to do, it seems, is to go home and spend quality time with his wife and children.

Everything changes the day he meets Gabriel, a homeless man living outside his office building, and to his own great surprise, gives him not only his coffee but also a job in the busy mail room. But who is Gabe? He looks a little like Lou. He seems to know things about him and his life that no stranger could know, and he has the uncanny knack of popping up everywhere. Almost like he can be in two places at once - a talent Lou would love to possess...

This was definitely a more accomplished and better-written novel than I was, rather cynically, expecting. Lou is one of those characters we root for even though we hope we'll never be like him. Throughout the book I wanted to grab hold of him and shake him as he made his bad decisions and pushed his family further and further away through his own selfishness and ambition, and I was longing for him to turn things around before it was too late. I like the fact that we are left to draw our own conclusions about Gabe as well - is he some kind of magical figure of conscience? An angel, as his name suggests? In true magical realism style, we are simply left to wonder over the cryptic clues.

The only thing I really didn't like was Ahern's over-zealous use of imagery. Oh, how I hated it. She mixes her metaphors and scrambles her similes and seems to feel the need to describe EVERYTHING in reference to something else. This veers from laughably ridiculous to vaguely irritating to hideously jarring and back again, and lost the book a star for me. On the flip side, the characters and relationships are beautifully drawn, and the family and company circles through which Lou moves are pitch-perfect. It made me think, it made me cry, and the moral of the story is ever-relevant in today's fast-paced, consumer-driven society. Definitely a good novel for the run-up to Christmas! show less

Picked up as a holiday read (hence also reading the German translation).

Where to start? The translation is clumsy, full of half-English words and badly-translated idioms. (A heart attack is not a Herzattacke, it's a Herzinfarkt, dammit!)

The writing it heavy on exposition and full of similes which the author undoubtedly thinks are incredibly clever - she is wrong.

The real trouble with the book, though, is the one-dimensionality of the characters. Lou, the main character, is a "businessman" who works for a "development company". He is a workaholic who doesn't spend enough time with his family, and the book is supposed to show us how he realises what's really important in life before it's too late. I work in a business environment, I show more occasionally spend more time in the office than I should, there are months when my cat forgets what I smell like - I should be able to identify with this character. And yet I struggle, because he is simply play-acting at being a "businessman". Cecelia Ahern has clearly never worked in that kind of environment herself, and it shows. Every time she attempts to describe Lou's work life, it ends up as a string of meaningless buzzwords - he might as well be negotiating the BlackBerry and closing the deal on the paperwork. The environment itself feels like a cliche from the 50s (or Germany in the 90s): the only women working in Lou's company are secretaries, and they sleep with their bosses.

None of the other characters fare any better - they are all sketches and stock characters, one-dimensional cliches. Keeping in mind that the plot isn't particularly original (except, perhaps, for the ending), and the whole thing leaves an aftertaste like rice rice cakes - bland Styrofoam.

To top it all off, the author/narrator is incredibly patronising. Just in case we didn't get the point, she spends the last ten pages ramming it home over and over. Colour me unimpressed.

Bechdel: I *think* there's a scene where Lou's wife tells their five-year-old daughter, who's busy puking her guts out, that everything's okay - but I'm not even sure if it's written as dialogue or, yet again, exposition. I'm going to be a little stricter with Bechdel this year though - I don't think this counts. Fail. show less

‘Enchanting’ certainly is a suitable word to describe The Gift. While it isn’t exactly the perfect Christmas story (I’ll get to that later), it’ll still warm readers’ hearts.

The story follows Lou, a workaholic who’s so busy with his career, he has no time for his family. One day, as a random act of kindness, he meets Gabe, a homeless man outside his office and gives him a job. Gabe gradually begins to warm up to Lou, and gives him a container of pills that ‘gives Lou all the time he needs’.

Ahern has certainly matured as a writer. Her writing is more emotionally driven and thought provoking. While she does tend to push the fantasy aspect of her novel beyond something believable, as long as it works, I’m not show more complaining. Time is also a prominent theme in the novel, and Ahern successfully emphasizes it through her characters.

Lou isn’t the kind of character you’d warm up to at the beginning. At first I was repulsed by his attitude towards his family, but as the story progresses, I start rooting for him to change his ways. During the second-half of the story, Lou begins to redeem himself as a family man, and that’s when he becomes truly likeable. Gabe is as mysterious when he enters the story as when it ends. I felt there were too many unanswered questions about him, and that made him a little unrealistic.

However, I was a little disappointed at the ending. I understand that Ahern had to kill off Lou’s character to make him more sympathetic, but in doing so, it gives the novel a sad and sombre tone, which doesn’t really fit with the festive mood of Christmas. Ahern also spent too much time building Lou’s character – nearly the entire first half of the novel was dedicated to establishing Lou as a workaholic. I felt she could’ve explored more of Gabe’s character, and explain some of the mysteries surrounding him, like how does he know so much about Lou and his life.

Despite some minor letdowns, The Gift is a heartwarming and emotional novel, and should satisfy Cecelia Ahern fans, as well as anyone looking for a nice, thought-provoking read show less

I don't often read "chic lit" but chose this for our book club to read for our December novel as it appeared on my Amazon recommendations. With that in mind, I have to say I thoroughly enjoyed it and was very pleasantly surprised not only by the novel itself but by the ending (which I won't spoil here).
In her main character Lou Suffern, Ahern creates a protagonist that is difficult to empathise with at the same time as he is very easy to understand. A driven, work is priority while his family suffers at home man is not the first choice when it comes to a "hero" for the reader to root for. However, by the end of the book not only was I rooting for him, I was convinced by his transformation, introduced through the character of Gabe.
I show more think Ahern uses Gabe well, there's always an element of doubt about whether he's a real person, whether he's been sent there ala "A Wonderful Life" to show Lou what life would be/could be like or whether he's there with a nefarious purpose in mind.
With the central premise that time is precious and something that can never be reclaimed, Ahern gives us a somewhat updated twist on Dicken's A Christmas Carol which is perfect for the season, even if it ends with a bittersweet note. show less

I don't often read "chic lit" but chose this for our book club to read for our December novel as it appeared on my Amazon recommendations. With that in mind, I have to say I thoroughly enjoyed it and was very pleasantly surprised not only by the novel itself but by the ending (which I won't spoil here).
In her main character Lou Suffern, Ahern creates a protagonist that is difficult to empathise with at the same time as he is very easy to understand. A driven, work is priority while his family suffers at home man is not the first choice when it comes to a "hero" for the reader to root for. However, by the end of the book not only was I rooting for him, I was convinced by his transformation, introduced through the character of Gabe.
I show more think Ahern uses Gabe well, there's always an element of doubt about whether he's a real person, whether he's been sent there ala "A Wonderful Life" to show Lou what life would be/could be like or whether he's there with a nefarious purpose in mind.
With the central premise that time is precious and something that can never be reclaimed, Ahern gives us a somewhat updated twist on Dicken's A Christmas Carol which is perfect for the season, even if it ends with a bittersweet note. show less

I thought this would be a pleasant light read for the Christmas season, and expected to finish it quickly, reading a chapter or two each evening. It took me over two weeks... and it wasn't a difficult read. Just - strange. Not as quirky as some of the author's other books, but bizarre; a tale within a tale. A teenage boy, angry at his parents, is taken to a police station and then told a long story about a guy called Lou whom the police dealt with that morning.

Lou is a workaholic who neglects his family... but his life changes when he meets Gabe. It's never spelled out who Gabe is but the Christmas theme and the events that unfold make it fairly obvious. Gabe is a homeless man whom Lou buys a coffee.. and then employs in his mailroom. show more And it just gets odder and odder, Gabe eventually giving Lou some tablets that have a very peculiar effect which temporarily seems to make his busy life rather easier. Only it's not that simple...

I kept finding myself forgetting who was whom (other than Lou and Gabe) and slightly startled when there was a temporary return to the teenage boy at the police station. And I really struggled to like Lou. He does start to feel more human towards the end - and then there's a depressing conclusion.

The moral is clear - don't neglect family for work - but this is not a light and frivolous Christmas story. The writing is good and the story flows... but when I'd finished, I rather wished I hadn't bothered.

Not really recommended. show less

This is a cute book. Maybe some will find it's trying to teach you a lesson (ie. value those around you), but I didn't find that (perhaps I'm getting soft in my old age). I was kept guessing be the ending, but I wonder why there are always deaths in books by this author (cf P.S. I Love You)? There is also a little bit of suspension of reality in order for the main character, Lou, to learn his lesson.
Please don't read this as a happy Christmas book, because although you may be more inclined to listen to your great aunt's trips down memory lane, it may not put you in the happiest festive spirit..