Reviewed: “Love, Rosie” by Cecelia Ahern

Just to lay things out, I will admit I decided to buy LOVE, ROSIE by Cecelia Ahern because I’ve seen teaser trailers and stills from the upcoming movie based on the book starring Lily Collins and Sam Claflin. I do that – read books because of who is going to be in the movie. I get credit for reading the book first, right?

Right.

Anyway, I bought LOVE, ROSIE. I got it on a Monday morning and finished it Wednesday afternoon. That’d be two days later, if it wasn’t clear. Normally, books that can be read that fast (especially when they’re 431 pages long) are a disappointment. It usually means there’s not much there but fluffy filler that all but makes up the plot of the thing. I usually end up wishing I hadn’t spent the money.

None of this was true for Ahern’s book.

For one thing, I bought a used copy so the money was very well spent to begin with.

For another thing, there is fluff (I think it’s probably officially-ish a chick lit book so that’s a given) but there wasn’t a page where I wasn’t rooting for the Fates to align for Rosie Dunne and Alex Stewart. I won’t say if the Fates ever do align, but you can probably guess – given the chick lit genre I’ve assigned it for the purposes of this review. I genuinely liked reading the emails and emails Rosie and Alex, and a very wide assortment of friends, sent each other along with the online chats – and if you don’t know, the entire book is correspondence based, no narrative per se. More importantly, I genuinely liked Rosie and Alex. They are every girl and boy with secret crushes on each other that time conspires against.

I spent half the time wanting to smack them for not seeing what was so obviously right there. I spent the other half time wanting to hug them and gently guide them to what was so obviously right there.

Liking the characters in a novel is always a plus and I don’t think it’d be possible to like Rosie, Alex, Katie, Ruby, and the others who play supporting roles in the romantic tragic comedy that is the relationship of the main two characters.

LOVE, ROSIE took me on a roller coaster of emotions. I laughed, cried, cheered, growled, and all the rest. I didn’t expect that from this book. I need to be less judgmental about these things. Or maybe not. Maybe it’s just as good to be so blown away by something. That’s it. I’ll just be open-minded and slightly judgmental.

In the meantime, I might read it again before the movie comes out…