The Time of My Life [Paperback]

I've been a fan of Cecelia Ahern since I picked up PS I Love You, and I love how she takes ordinary days and makes them into something magical with a little bit of imagination and a lot of flair! Lucy is a character you can really relate to, and the tidal waves of humour and wit throughout, making The Time of my Life such an enjoyable read. Although I do prefer Ahern's other books like The Gift and If you can See me Now, I would still recommend this read 100% :)

I bought this book on sunday i read the first 2 chapters then put it down,i picked it up again last night and it was that brilliant i didnt put it down till 6 in the morning till id read it all.Another fantastic book,the best writier from all the books i have.I have all your books cant wait for the next one if you dont have it go and buy it you wont put it down once you start reading it.Cecelia Ahern makes you feel part of the books and makes you think about things as your reading them and how the storys come about and gets you in the storys so deep you just cant put it down because your always wanting to know what happens next.

The Time of my Life is an interesting novel. I found it hard to really "feel" the novel as Lucy is one of those heroines you love to hate and when you write a book you want your heroine to make her mark and although Lucy did make her mark, it wasn't necessarily a good one and I found it hard to really root for her. I get that she's like that - after all, if she was lovely and warm and witty and inviting, then she wouldn't NEED to meet her Life. She wouldn't need Life's help to make her life better than it is. So although I did get that Lucy needed to be a bit unlikeable, it still didn't really help. I want a heroine I can root for and although I tried my hardest to root for Lucy, at times she just seemed beyond help and I wanted to slap her; to tell her to grow up.

The plot, however, is fantastic. I love the idea that if your life isn't as good as it should be then you'll get an appointment with your Life. I mean, that's so awesome and inventive and, well, I loved Cosmo. (Cosmo is Lucy's Life, that's what she/he decided on for a name.) I liked that Cosmo didn't just let Lucy get away with the lies she told and that he called her up on the way she lived her life. I liked how he was there for her and wanted to help her and to make her be more than she could be. The plot very much kept me reading, and I also liked the addition of Lucy's wrong number man whom she ends up talking to after dialling a wrong number. Both Cosmo (I love that name) and Don (the wrong number man) help with Lucy's edginess and the excellent plot kept me reading. If the novel had been solely about Lucy, I'd have given up long ago, but the plot and the secondary characters kept the novel going very well.

As you might already have realised, Lucy wasn't my favourite ever character. Her family didn't help; the Silchester's were quite horrible people, with the exception of her mother and brothers, and they'd definitely helped to shape her into the edgy, somewhat bitter person she became. I could understand her hesitance to change her life and trust Cosmo, but on the other hand, I just wanted her to embrace everything for once instead of trying to fight it. She does redeem herself somewhat and she isn't always awful, but it's hard to get over the first impressions I had of her; I want to be taken in by a character from page one, not feel as if I'm somehow imposing on her life. The secondary characters were brilliant and I really liked Cosmo and Don and Lucy's friends.

The Time of my Life is definitely a bit different to Cecelia's other novels. It was enjoyable enough and in the end, I warmed to Lucy. However first impressions of her are hard to bypass and I feel a lot of people will take an instant dislike to her. But she's worth persevering with. I mean it's Cecelia Ahern. She's always worth reading and although it wasn't quite on par with The Book of Tomorrow (which was ridiculously, insanely good) I still liked it. It was far from perfect and despite enjoying the plot, it was indeed a sharper read than I expected. I'd definitely recommend the book - of course I would, Cecelia Ahern could write a computer manual and I'd still recommend it - and it's definitely a book I'd read again. It's definitely a book I'm going to try and get a finished copy of (I know, I'm a sucker for a beautiful book). Cecelia's writing is as on top as ever, and I can't wait for what she comes up with next and I'm fairly sure this will be as big a bestseller as her other novels.