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PS I Love You
May. 25th, 2025 12:14 pmI wasn't sure wholly what to expect from PS I Love You by Cecelia Ahern, since I've read two of her books before and one of them was surprisingly fantastical...
This one is entirely real-world, about a young woman who loses her husband, but he leaves behind envelopes for her to open once per month, containing instructions for things she ought to do to move on in her life.
So, it started from a place of deep sadness, with the death of Holly's husband being quite fresh - but because I didn't know any of the characters yet, that emotion wasn't earned so it didn't land for me until quite a way through the book.
It also felt tonally very inconsistent - though I guess you could argue that's a very accurate depiction of grief, where sometimes Holly would have good day and sometimes bad. But it didn't feel very authentic - and it was a bit contradictory when she would go out clubbing and being having a wild old time, and then it would say she hadn't managed to feel happy at all in six months, which clearly wasn't the case.
A lot of the other characters in the book seemed very over-the-top, to the point of caricature in some cases, which jarred a bit with the emotional journey Holly was going on.
But it did get me tearing up a few times, quite a bit of it was fun, and it completely blindsided me with what happened at the end, since it had seemed to be going in a very predictable direction, and then - didn't.
It wasn't tough to read in any way, and I would say I enjoyed it overall. But it wasn't as impactful or as entertaining as I'd hoped.
This one is entirely real-world, about a young woman who loses her husband, but he leaves behind envelopes for her to open once per month, containing instructions for things she ought to do to move on in her life.
So, it started from a place of deep sadness, with the death of Holly's husband being quite fresh - but because I didn't know any of the characters yet, that emotion wasn't earned so it didn't land for me until quite a way through the book.
It also felt tonally very inconsistent - though I guess you could argue that's a very accurate depiction of grief, where sometimes Holly would have good day and sometimes bad. But it didn't feel very authentic - and it was a bit contradictory when she would go out clubbing and being having a wild old time, and then it would say she hadn't managed to feel happy at all in six months, which clearly wasn't the case.
A lot of the other characters in the book seemed very over-the-top, to the point of caricature in some cases, which jarred a bit with the emotional journey Holly was going on.
But it did get me tearing up a few times, quite a bit of it was fun, and it completely blindsided me with what happened at the end, since it had seemed to be going in a very predictable direction, and then - didn't.
It wasn't tough to read in any way, and I would say I enjoyed it overall. But it wasn't as impactful or as entertaining as I'd hoped.
