Publisher: Hachette Books
Publication date: December 1, 2001
Summary:
Rosie and Alex are destined for one another, and everyone seems to know it but them. Best friends since childhood, their relationship gets closer by the day, until Alex gets the news that his family is leaving Dublin and moving to Boston. At 17, Rosie and Alex have just started to see each other in a more romantic light. Devastated, the two make plans for Rosie to apply to colleges in the U.S.
She gets into Boston University, Alex gets into Harvard, and everything is falling into place, when on the eve of her departure, Rosie gets news that will change their lives forever: She's pregnant by a boy she'd gone out with while on the rebound from Alex.
Her dreams for college, Alex, and a glamorous career dashed, Rosie stays in Dublin to become a single mother, while Alex pursues a medical career and a new love in Boston. But destiny is a funny thing, and in this novel, structured as a series of clever e-mails, letters, notes, and a trail of missed opportunities, Alex and Rosie find out that fate isn't done with them yet.
My thoughts:
I have decided that I am actually going to leave this unrated. I feel like a 3 star rating does not do it justice, my reasons for disliking the book do not permit me to give it a 4/5 star and I didn't hate it enough for a 1/2 star.
I adored this book. Truly. From the first page I knew that I would love this story. I will admit, the letter format took me some time to get used to, but only about 30 pages and I was used to it and hooked.
Rosie and Alex are the most complex and irritatingly loveable characters I've ever read. Alex and his constant inability to tell anyone how he feels and to play everything off, as well as being unreliable.
Rosie and her inability to listen to everyone's advice, to be a negative whiny person and to never do anything for herself.
I admit, I never have wanted kids, infact I am violently against having children and this book just further reminded me why I don't want kids. Rosie is a great mother in that she sacrifices LITERALLY her entire life for her daughter, but I don't have it in me for that.
The side characters were so cute and I loved them all. I loved Ruby and her siblings and his siblings and Katie and Josh as well.
The length of the book though had me skipping a lot of the side stuff near the end. I lost interest in the brothers and sisters and even the children because I was so anxious to finish this 550 page book. It was so good but it really didn't need to be that long.
The length was also a little weird in terms of timing. The book spans 45 years of their lives. You have entire decades that pass in the span of 3 pages, and then you stay on one year of their life for 100 pages. It was a little hard to follow the time at points but it didn't seem to take away from the story.
Where I have a hard time rating the book is the love story. I didn't actually like it in the end. I loved them, I truly wanted them together. Until they were about 35. Then I stopped. I really DID want them to be together at first. They loved each other, that much was clear, but they just got sidetracked, babies happened, wives and husbands and then they couldn't be together. But then Sally and Alex got divorced and Alex was ready. Then Rosie and Greg got divorced and they were ready. I was extremely happy with that and I wanted it to stay like that. But then there was a new complication that prevented them from being together, once again, and that's where I lost interest. It went from being a really believable heartbreaking story of people who couldn't be together, to a story where a lot of stuff happened just to add drama. I think that 10 or so years of waiting was enough. I don't really think that the author needed to start adding more complications. I lost interest almost in the book entirely by that point. Not to mention that it's kind of bittersweet that they finally end up together on the last page, where we can't read any of it, and when they are 50. They have lived almost their entire lives by then. It's not a romantic storyline anymore, it's just sad.
So the reason I am refraining from rating the book is NOT because I didn't like it, it's because I don't think it's fair to rate a book 1 star because of a romance plot (even though that's the whole book), but I'm not rating the book 5 stars when I didn't like the main storyline. So if you're looking for a decision whether to read this or not, I leave you with all of that information and you can decide what to do with it.
I adored this book. Truly. From the first page I knew that I would love this story. I will admit, the letter format took me some time to get used to, but only about 30 pages and I was used to it and hooked.
Rosie and Alex are the most complex and irritatingly loveable characters I've ever read. Alex and his constant inability to tell anyone how he feels and to play everything off, as well as being unreliable.
Rosie and her inability to listen to everyone's advice, to be a negative whiny person and to never do anything for herself.
I admit, I never have wanted kids, infact I am violently against having children and this book just further reminded me why I don't want kids. Rosie is a great mother in that she sacrifices LITERALLY her entire life for her daughter, but I don't have it in me for that.
The side characters were so cute and I loved them all. I loved Ruby and her siblings and his siblings and Katie and Josh as well.
The length of the book though had me skipping a lot of the side stuff near the end. I lost interest in the brothers and sisters and even the children because I was so anxious to finish this 550 page book. It was so good but it really didn't need to be that long.
The length was also a little weird in terms of timing. The book spans 45 years of their lives. You have entire decades that pass in the span of 3 pages, and then you stay on one year of their life for 100 pages. It was a little hard to follow the time at points but it didn't seem to take away from the story.
Where I have a hard time rating the book is the love story. I didn't actually like it in the end. I loved them, I truly wanted them together. Until they were about 35. Then I stopped. I really DID want them to be together at first. They loved each other, that much was clear, but they just got sidetracked, babies happened, wives and husbands and then they couldn't be together. But then Sally and Alex got divorced and Alex was ready. Then Rosie and Greg got divorced and they were ready. I was extremely happy with that and I wanted it to stay like that. But then there was a new complication that prevented them from being together, once again, and that's where I lost interest. It went from being a really believable heartbreaking story of people who couldn't be together, to a story where a lot of stuff happened just to add drama. I think that 10 or so years of waiting was enough. I don't really think that the author needed to start adding more complications. I lost interest almost in the book entirely by that point. Not to mention that it's kind of bittersweet that they finally end up together on the last page, where we can't read any of it, and when they are 50. They have lived almost their entire lives by then. It's not a romantic storyline anymore, it's just sad.
So the reason I am refraining from rating the book is NOT because I didn't like it, it's because I don't think it's fair to rate a book 1 star because of a romance plot (even though that's the whole book), but I'm not rating the book 5 stars when I didn't like the main storyline. So if you're looking for a decision whether to read this or not, I leave you with all of that information and you can decide what to do with it.
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