Any Dream Will Do [Paperback]

I do love a good debut novel, and when I was offered the opportunity to review Maria Duffy's new book Any Dream Will Do, I of course jumped at the chance. I think the cover is absolutely beautiful and really stands out, and it looks wonderfully wintery as well which is always a bonus in my book! I knew that the book is about Twitter as well, which sounded interesting as Twitter is getting ever-popular and I don't think anybody has actually written a book based around it before so I was curious to see how Duffy would deal with it and how easily it would be woven into the story.

The main character is a lady called Jenny, and I have to be honest and say from the off that I really didn't like her at all. I found her hard to warm to from the start and annoyingly my feelings towards her didn't change at all as the book progressed, something which I often find can be the case to be honest. Jenny seemed weirdly obsessed with Twitter - no reason was given for this obsession and her constant 'embellishing of the truth' shall we say, and I found it a bit odd. When she suggests a meet-up between her and her 3 online "friends", I think I could immediately see where it was going and was almost cringing because I knew Jenny was making an awful decision in meeting up with 3 total strangers. Jenny also had a strange relationship with her mother, and her new boyfriend, another thing that I disliked about her! It was clear that the man she was dating wasn't right for her yet she doesn't give it up, and I couldn't really understand her decisions with things like that! She seemed a very immature grown-up, very odd!

The three people Jenny meets on Twitter aren't exactly what they claimed to be when they finally descend of Dublin as per Jenny's instructions. I don't want to say too much but it went exactly as I thought it would go, and I found some of the scenes were just awful and I wanted to skip them because I felt so awkward reading them. It wasn't the writing style or anything to do with that, but it was just characters, their interactions and the general way that they were which didn't sit right with me, and as I said, I struggled to plough on through some scenes as they just felt like hard work. Jenny managed quite well considering the awful circumstances I suppose but I couldn't really sympathise with her as all I could think was that she had brought it on herself! I guess it goes to show the perils of a site like Twitter as well and how people can become anyone they want to be, and nobody on there is going to know any different.

Overall, this was a good book but it didn't blow me away like I was hoping for it too. I found the constant tweets throughout the book somewhat annoying as they broke up the flow of the rest of the novel, and I just hated the main character Jenny, never a good thing really! Duffy does weave a good story, and I can see she has the talent to write something amazing but this one just felt a bit clunky and awkward to me which was a shame. With dislikeable characters and a plot that's a bit far-fetched but does have it's funny moments, Any Dream Will Do is a strange kind of book that you might not completely love but there's something very readable about it which will make you want to keep reading until you've finished it, if only to find out how it'll all end for Jenny! Will she still be as obsessed with Twitter as ever or will her bad experience put an end to that?! Read it and find out!

What Maria Duffy has done in Any Dream will do is create a character in Jenny Breslin that you really take to, you are very much with her every step of her rollercoaster journey! I found this a really compelling read and a lot of fun. I really loved the twitter theme and the idea that the personalities we present on social media might not always be what they seem. The book is full of action and the characters are well created and endearing with a sexy and warm male lead. I would definitely recommend this for a Christmas read or any time of year. A great debut from an author who looks like she will be a great hit.

Sometimes, a novel comes along which is timed perfectly to tap into modern culture. Maria Duffy's debut novel `Any Dream Will Do' is one such novel, exploring our obsession with social media and how we can sometimes be fooled by what we are seeing on those screens in front of us.

The novel is told through the honest, witty voice of single thirty-year-old Jenny Breslin. With an emotionally distant/deranged mother (who acts more like a teenage rebel than a mother), a boring bank job, an awful boss, a lacking love-life and friends who seem to be living the perfect family life, Jenny turns to Twitter for company, where she establishes stronger friendships and a better social life than she has in the `real' world. Far from fiction, this is something which happens every day and through her characters, Maria Duffy explores the implications of social networking on our relationships and friendships.

When Jenny drunkenly invites three of her Twitter friends to spend a few days with her in Dublin to meet up in person for the first time, her assumptions about the people she has got to know `virtually' are turned completely upside down, leading her to re-evaluate her own life and realise that perhaps it isn't that bad after all.

Any Dream Will Do is a funny, heart-warming novel which sparkles with rich Dublin wit throughout. With Jenny Breslin, Maria has created a Bridget Jones for the social networking generation - Jenny's disastrous love-life, endless, toe-curlingly embarrassing incidents, the brilliant Mammy Delaney and the anticipation of a white Christmas keeps the pages turning and the plot building to a surprising climax.

From the seasonal, eye-catching cover to the touching personal acknowledgments at the end, this is a debut of which the author should be very proud.