Review: Where Rainbows End/Love Rosie by Cecelia Ahern

Title: Where Rainbows End/Love, Rosie
Author: Cecelia Ahern
Summary:Where Rainbows End is a story told through letters, emails and instant messaging about the ever changing relationship between the two main characters Rosie Dunne and Alex Stewart. Rosie and Alex are close friends from childhood but one day they are suddenly separated when Alex and his family move from Dublin to Boston. The book guides us through their relationship as it continues to change due to distance, new relationships and circumstances which seem determined to keep them apart. One question remains throughout the book, were they always meant to be more than friends and will they risk everything including their friendship on love?
Rating: 3.5/5 stars

Review: So I'd like to say that I did enjoy this book. It took me awhile to figure how exactly I wanted to rate it (I have difficulty with rating things to begin with, though) as I sort of have a love/hate feel towards it after finishing it. But I think it's worth the read but I do think it requires a bit of patience as sometimes it can be awfully slow. Nevertheless, it will pull at your heartstrings, infuriate you but also make you laugh. There is a lot of humour in this book to accompany the drama which I think really helped as a whole. I recommend you check out the book if the story appeals to you and you're willing to last through the slower parts. :)

Anyhow, now I'm getting into spoiler talk. Be warned if you have yet to pick up this book!


Okay, so firstly, this book was nothing like I expected to be. I recently saw the trailer to the movie adaptation of it (see here) and it seemed like a really funny, cute film so I gathered the book would be similar. I was also really feeling like another contemporary after finishing Fangirl (check my review here). But wow, either the film aims to be nothing like the book, or they are seriously trying to fool their audience because it read nothing like how I imagined. (I'd like it to be known now that even though the film looks nothing like the book, it still looks really neat anyway). The book is a lot deeper than I expected, but still really sweet and fun.

Having the book told solely in correspondence was another surprise. I really enjoyed it like this, though. I've only read a handful of things that were written in this way and it always offers an interesting perspective on everything that goes down. I think at sometimes it can be frustrating though as it makes it harder to get attached to characters as you only get a small insight into how they are but after awhile that seems to matter less and less. I think Cecelia was really brave in relying solely on this to tell her story and I think she did it well!

Okay, so I loved, loved, LOVED the relationship between Rosie and Alex. But I also hated it. They were adorable and there was clearly this undeniable bond between the two but it was frustrating and painful to watch them wait so long to get together. Watching their marriages fail and their constant denial at what they clearly felt. I swear I spent half the time screaming at my book telling these two to open their eyes. And every time they spoke about 'the silence' a little piece of me died because I just wanted the other to acknowledge that the other had felt that as well. But their ending was really satisfying and touching and I loved it a whole lot.

My biggest issue with the book is linked with the whole 'they took so long to get together' feeling. It's not they took 'so long' as much as they took 'too long'. I found the book just far too long all together. I know it spanned just short of 50 years but I feel like it could've been condensed quite a bit. I personally found all the chat room stuff really boring and wouldn't have minded it being cut. I think there was, as a whole, an unnecessary focus on things that weren't important and it made the story drag and took a lot of patience to get through some bits.

Nevertheless, I did like the book, in general. I didn't love it but it was a decent read. I'd like to add though that I found my favourite character ended up being Rosie's daughter, Katie. I loved the parallel between Katie/Toby and Rosie/Alex but Katie as a singular character was really awesome and I would've loved to see more stuff from her in her older years. But anyhow, I'm interested to see how the film goes about making this story on-screen. Let me know all your thoughts on this book in the comments!

Until next time!
Jess, xxx