Lessons in Laughing Out Loud [Paperback]

I saw this book in Tesco and thought it looked good but didn't buy it for whatever reason. When I went back a few weeks later it had gone! After finally getting it sent to me on Amazon, I took it as my holiday reading as I was looking forward to reading it.

I really enjoyed the huge chunk I read on the plane. Willow appealed to me a lot and her being overweight, perpetually single, seemingly dissatisfied with her life despite having a good job working for a celebrity agency, and comparing her life to that of her twin intrigued me. The real hook for me though was the strange shop in the square and the magic shoes and coat. That added a touch of what I love about Cecelia Ahern. Then came the famous celeb with the love-life crisis in her flat, and the pregnant teenage ex-step-daughter which only added to the mix in a good way. We then have her own complex love life - feelings for her 'best friend', unfinished business with her ex-husband and new possibilities with 'Serious James', who is portrayed as being a bit of a unfortunate, self-depreciating geek.

I loved this book until about two thirds of the way through it, then somehow the gloss started to wear off and I only liked it. I felt that perhaps the plot was too busy - there were a lot of great threads or sub-plots, so that I wasn't really sure what them main plot was any more. I guess ultimately, it was the resolution of Willow's unspoken problems with her life, all stemming from events in her past which hadn't been dealt with properly, leading to the 'happy ending' with...whichever man she decides to choose!

I agree with another reviewer here though - the back cover plot (the secret from her past that binds her closely to her sister) doesn't really describe most of this book very well and isn't even addressed until the last few chapters of the book. It seems to suggest a different kind of story than it ends up being - like the author couldn't decide what type of book they wanted to write. What's more, however irritating it is when people write in reviews that they "saw the twist coming a mile away", I didn't think it was very hard to guess what had happened to her in the past. It didn't make it any less sad, but it didn't move me to tears for Willow however likeable she was.

I'm glad that she didn't end up 'losing weight and becoming happy' which I had expected as it's so often the case with books featuring an overweight and unhappy main character, and apart from one comment about "the wrong side of a size 14" (whatever that's supposed to mean!), I didn't notice any negativity in this portrayal of a big girl. She ended up happy with her size, even though I suppose you could interpret the underlying message as "she's only fat because bad things happened to her so it's not her fault".

The Cecelia-Ahern element just ended up being a bit disappointing as well as it didn't come to much and wasn't really explained properly! It was actually largely irrelevent in the end as her newfound 'courage' seemed to come not from a fur coat and a pair of shoes or any old locket, but from the dilemmas faced by her nearest and dearest around her that forced her to step up to the mark and get over her own demons. It seemed like it had been added as an afterthought.

Oh, and one thing that really irritated me was the unrealistic way the children spoke! Rowan Coleman does not write children well if this book is anything to go by. I've never known children speak like that! On the plus side, Chloe's teenage character was very well done, I felt.

Overall, I enjoyed the book and would recommend it to friends as a good read, but perhaps I just built it up in my head too much due to having to hunt it down in the first place! It was a good holiday read, and I hope that I could one day write a book at least as good as this. :)

Once I had finished this book, I have to say its one of the most moving and beautifully written novels I read in a long time - and its the first to actually have me crying tears for a very long time. Come the end I was sobbing for Willow, and it takes a great talent to move me to tears, let me tell you! Here is why you MUST read this book.

Although the blurb of this book initially talks about Willow and Holly being twin sisters, Holly barely features in the novel. This book is all about Willow, but I actually liked that it focussed more on one person as it helped us to really get into Willow's story and allowed it to develop without having to deviate too far from it. Willow is a fantastic character for so many reasons. She is great at her job as a PA, she is a great sister to Holly, a fab aunty to her nieces who lovingly call her Aunty Pillow, and best of all she's a wonderful step-mother to Chloe, the daughter of her ex-husband Sam. Something happened in Willow's past that holds her back, something we aren't made aware of for a good while into the book, but it is something quite shocking. I don't want to say what it is or any more about it actually as you need to read about it for it to work, but I felt Coleman handled the issue superbly, and while a few scenes made for startling reading, it was well covered and handled.

Perhaps the best thing about this book for me was the relationship between Willow and Chloe. Chloe has found herself in a spot of bother, and being only 16, she decides to run away from her dad to the only person she is sure will help her - her ex-step-mother. I felt Coleman really wrote this relationship really realistically, both the good and bad sides of it and it was wonderful to watch it grow and happen as the book progressed. It was also nice to see a fairly amicable relationship between Sam and Willow too, although again we don't know why the pair split up until a long way into the book. The storyline involving Chloe is another quite controversial one but again I felt Coleman had done the research and had the compassion in her writing to handle it well enough. The male characters were all well written too, from her ex-husband Sam, to the typical `alpha male' character Daniel who I rather liked by the way, to his bumbling friend James who seemed a bit of a strange inclusion, but all the way through, you're never quite sure which, if any, of these Willow will want to end up with.

The refreshing thing about this book is that it isn't all about men, or a woman looking for the perfect man. Instead, its more about facing up to your demons, working on the broken relationships in your life with everyone important to you and moving forward, not looking back. It's positive, it's life-affirming and was just a joy to read. I actually found myself staying up til almost 2am to finish this because I had to find out what happened to Willow and how things would end for her and Holly. I can only imagine the emotions Coleman went through writing this as it really comes out in her writing, and as I say moved me to tears. There was something about this book that consumed me, and still months after reading it, it's still with me. I have to confess I wasn't mad about the whole `magical shoes' idea, that was a bit far-fetched for me and I'm not madly into magical storylines but again, it felt okay within the book and wasn't too heavy. There is some humour to lighten up the more serious and hard-going storylines, but this is just a superb read that I highly recommend to ANYONE. I loved every page, and it's definitely up there as one of my favourite reads this year. Read it!

In 'Lessons in Laughing Out Loud', several conflicts are woven together to create a work of contemporary fiction at it's best. I wanted to read this book constantly as each reveal occurred, right until 20 pages from the end. Then it took me over a week to read the last 20 pages, because I slowed to a crawl as I didn't want to reach the end.

Willow is a likeable protagonist, as flawed as any human being but written in a way that makes you think the author knows this woman (or women like her). Fundamentally this book is about human relationships; the good, the bad, and the shockingly, hideously evil.

There are three men in this book; the traditional Alpha Male, irresistible Daniel, the one that got away Sam, and the faltering geeky type, James. They are written in such a way that you like all of them and have no idea who will end up with Willow until the conclusion is reached.

But this book is so much more than romance. It's about relationships at work, at home, everywhere. I particularly liked the character of Willow's control-freak boss, who, despite seeming like the boss from hell in some respects, is a fascinating character to read. But the relationship that struck a chord with me was that of Willow and Chloe, Sam's daughter. Having a step daughter myself I can relate to the love between them, and this is what had me reading through tears towards the end of the book.

I recommend this book to anyone out there who likes a bit of romance but with added meat to the story. You will not be disappointed.