Book Review: 'Love, Rosie'

In which I spew forth all of the praise and feels for Cecelia Ahern's Love, Rosie (formerly titled Where Rainbows End).

It's not often that a book touches me so profoundly that I take a good, hard look of what I think the trajectory of my life will be. Will I actually accomplish what I want to accomplish? I'm a firm realistic optimist, so I say yes! Will I find true love? When the time is right. Will I travel the world like I so desperately want to? I sure as hell hope so. I attempt to plan my future, but let's get real for a minute: I'm 22 and I'm much better at meal prepping and fangirling than I am at life planning. And that's okay.

Rosie. Just typing her name makes me smile, because to begin to describe her complexities...well, I could write a book about it. She's smart and witty, but doesn't give herself nearly enough credit. Rosie's caring and selfless, but also human and raw. Her eloquent rambling makes me connect to her on a spiritual level. The way that she consistently perseveres and stands up for herself, her family, and what she believes to be true: Rosie is such a heroine in her own right.

Alex. I feel like the laugh I just had over thinking about him says it all. He's an overachiever who frequently misses the mark in his personal life. A lover who commits in all of the wrong ways...until it's finally right.

In tracing the course of Rosie and Alex's friendship from childhood to adulthood, through births and deaths, I felt I was given a gift being able to see these charming, multi-faceted characters progress (and sometimes regress). They're those two friends you know who've known each other forever. They're the backs of each other's hands, yet they can never seem to get it right. Basically, you want to smoosh their faces together and BOOM happily ever after.

I spent the duration of the novel wanting their happy ending to come already. While there were so many moments where I wanted to strangle the book in frustration, because I yearned for that coupling satisfaction, the rocky friendship needed to evolve. And evolve it did.

Love, Rosie is told through the written word only. By that I mean you read all of the emails, instant messages, handwritten letters, and chat-room sessions that the characters send to each other. I hadn't directly thought about it before, but you can learn more about a person just by their writing aesthetic (please spell correctly, for the love of the literary fairies!) than by a lot of standard first person narratives. It's less biased and more about the intricacies of their personal relationships.

There's sections of the book where Rosie seeks advice through a chatroom suited to her interests and a friend says: If you want something, you need to get out there and grab it by the horns because no one is going to give you what you want on a plate. The truth in this line is so in tune with how I try to steer my life. It's such a good reminder that you are in charge of your life and the path you take.

Just do it already. Pick up Love, Rosie. Fall in love with the oh-so-lovely and realistic characters, the magnificent Dublin (as if I didn't want to visit enough already!), and superb writing. You won't regret it. I'm grateful I did.


Katherine


P.S. Have you read Love, Rosie and/or viewed the film? Clearly, watching the film is next on my to-do list!