This one is for my best friend....

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Few people are blessed with good friends. And some are lucky enough to have BEST one's. I fall in the later category.... I wrote following book review coz my best friend asked me to do it.... turned out one of my finest reviews yet... thought I should share.


If you have ever had a friend, or rather best friend, whom you have managed to hold on to, keep in contact with over the years, even when life has taken you two in different directions... you will LOVE reading Cecelia Ahern's Love, Rosie. The book was released with multiple names, few of which are Rosie Dunne and Where Rainbows End. I always wondered why that was, but haven't heard any reason for it.


Cecelia Ahern is mostly known for her first novel, which turned out to be a Best seller and was made into a movie with Hillary Swank and Gerald Butler... P.S. I Love You. The novel was start of a whirlwind career and Cecelia hasn’t stopped yet. Her following novels are not as famous as her first one; but trust me; they are much much much better while reading.


I had sworn off Cecelia after reading P.S.I Love You, since that was a total emotional roller-coaster. But like all BAD things, her books have been attracting me through the shelves of book stores, and I keep on falling into temptations and buy them. Only to renew my resolution of swearing off of her books, due to excessive emotional stirrings. Somehow with every book she wrote, she has made a point to touch upon a facet of human emotions and life that we tend to overlook. Take for example the novel in question here.... Love, Rosie.


We all had friends in school. A special one who we chatted up and passed chits while classes were running. Someone with whom we shared our tiffin and gossiped about what you saw your elder bro doing after school. Someone whom we thought was bound to be around us through our lives. School days gradually gave way to college and the position of the best friend switched position with someone new. Once again, the mates in class turned our partners in crime, bunking college, going to movies and an occasional booze session at someone's house. When life took turn towards career, friends moved away and faded into memories. How many of those so called Best Friends are you still in touch with? Not via Orkut or Facebook, but via calls, emails and phones?

That’s where Cecelia's “Love, Rosie” takes us. Down the memory lane when life's biggest decision was between finishing a school assignment and watching TV. Where friends were supposed to be someone who shared your fears of failing in grade exams. Only difference is that the protagonists in the novel, Rosie Dunne and Alex Stewart, actually manage to hold on to each other through the thick and thin of their lives.



It’s an epistolary novel, set in Ireland, about two lovely friends Rosie and Alex. You open the first pages of the novel and are invited to her 7th b'day. BTW, for those who don't know what epistolary is, it means a novel written in form of correspondence. i.e. it’s a book full of written exchanges between the people, notes exchanged in classroom, letters, emails, sms etc etc. Coming back to the story. Love, Rosie takes you through the world of Rosie Dunne, via the pages and pages full of exchanges she has made with people, rather important people in her life. Though the exchanges involve all people around her, the theme of the whole story revolves around her Best Friend Alex.


I've hardly have read a book with the speed I finished this one. Mostly because, the very nature of the book is friendly, short and sweet. You are never really boggled with who is talking about what, since they talk like we normally do. A span of a life time.... almost half a decade, rushes through the 500 pages of the book, and you are taken into the stream without even realizing when you were caught. You get to meet both of them at 7 years of age, and get to grow old with them, till the ripe age of 50. You get to see them falling in love, out of love, into marriages and child births. You get to see them loving each other and experience the nervousness of not realising that it is love.... you get at the edge of the seat wondering why are they not telling each other, and by the time you reach middle of the book you are too exhausted being too involved in the story. You smile at their goof-ups, worry about them, smile with them and cry along with them. You feel the happiness shining on their faces, and you feel the moisture glistening in their eyes when life hits them.


By the time the 500 pages of the book are over, you almost feel content. Content to know that destiny sometimes takes a longer route, but it reaches the destination. Happy that things are falling in place, sad that life took so long to correct its simple mistake.... And sad that the book actually came to an end.


Once again, you realise the wonder of having a best friend. One who understands you without words, someone who listens to you cribbing about life, and someone who shares the joy of just sitting on the porch with, without talking. So, if you have such a friend, do read Love, Rosie and share the warmth with those whom you love.... coz I just did, and it’s a wonderful feeling. :)