Amazon UK
Title: The Woman Who Stole My Life
Author: Marian Keyes
Format reviewed: Paperback
Source: Purchased
Publisher: Penguin
Publication Date: 21st May 2015
Rating: 4 Stars
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| Amazon UK |
One day, sitting in traffic, married Dublin mum Stella Sweeney attempts a good deed. The resulting car crash changes her life.
For she meets a man who wants her telephone number (for the insurance, it turns out). That's okay. She doesn't really like him much anyway (his Range Rover totally banjaxed her car).
But in this meeting is born the seed of something which will take Stella thousands of miles from her old life, turning an ordinary woman into a superstar, and, along the way, wrenching her whole family apart.
Is this all because of one ill-advised act of goodwill? Was meeting Mr Range Rover destiny or karma? Should she be grateful or hopping mad?
For the first time real, honest-to-goodness happiness is just within her reach. But is Stella Sweeney, Dublin housewife, ready to grasp it?
Recently I have seen a lot of mixed feeling for this book, so it was with apprehension that I started to read. Well I absolutely loved the first part of the book, mainly for the main background setting scenes. As the story progressed though although I understood the title a lot better, I was finding that although I was happy to continue reading, it just didn't really hook me as the beginning did.
I think what intrigued me about the first section of the book, was Stella's contraction of and dealing with a terrible illness, that left her unable to do anything for month on end apart from blink. With the aid of a neurologist who works out a way of communicating with her by blinking, they start to have conversations. All the while we get to see inside Stella's head and how was was feeling while being in hospital. It's this neurologist who turns out to be quite key the remainder of the story.
Stella is just an ordinary person who after her extreme illness, discovers that with the help of a certain someone, her communications while in hospital have been put together as a book, and from that her life transforms in even more ways.
Unfortunately I found I didn't really care that much for the rest of Stella's family, her husband is incredibly self centred, although the present day chapters show he has a big idea for proving karma exists, and in a way provides a bit of comic relief at the sheer stupidity of his plan.
I did find it a bit weird how at times Stella had to keep relying on babysitters, despite with the approximate ages of the children, they could have easily been trusted overnight, or for a few hours in an evening, they were mid to late teens even at the start of the book, and weren't the trouble making sort.
This was the first standalone Marian Keyes book I have read, after having read the entire Walsh series. I did on the whole really enjoy the book, I found it did have some interesting changes of direction that made it quite unpredictable at times, and definitely had that that style of storytelling that seems to always appear in Irish writing.
Thank you to everyone who voted this week. It was a tie between this and the Cathy Kelly, and I picked this in part due to all the comments on the Cathy Kelly votes saying they weren't as keen on the Marian Keyes, and it made me very curious as to what my opinion would be! I hope to see you all taking part in this weeks vote that has already started.
I think what intrigued me about the first section of the book, was Stella's contraction of and dealing with a terrible illness, that left her unable to do anything for month on end apart from blink. With the aid of a neurologist who works out a way of communicating with her by blinking, they start to have conversations. All the while we get to see inside Stella's head and how was was feeling while being in hospital. It's this neurologist who turns out to be quite key the remainder of the story.
Stella is just an ordinary person who after her extreme illness, discovers that with the help of a certain someone, her communications while in hospital have been put together as a book, and from that her life transforms in even more ways.
Unfortunately I found I didn't really care that much for the rest of Stella's family, her husband is incredibly self centred, although the present day chapters show he has a big idea for proving karma exists, and in a way provides a bit of comic relief at the sheer stupidity of his plan.
I did find it a bit weird how at times Stella had to keep relying on babysitters, despite with the approximate ages of the children, they could have easily been trusted overnight, or for a few hours in an evening, they were mid to late teens even at the start of the book, and weren't the trouble making sort.
This was the first standalone Marian Keyes book I have read, after having read the entire Walsh series. I did on the whole really enjoy the book, I found it did have some interesting changes of direction that made it quite unpredictable at times, and definitely had that that style of storytelling that seems to always appear in Irish writing.
Thank you to everyone who voted this week. It was a tie between this and the Cathy Kelly, and I picked this in part due to all the comments on the Cathy Kelly votes saying they weren't as keen on the Marian Keyes, and it made me very curious as to what my opinion would be! I hope to see you all taking part in this weeks vote that has already started.
I loved this book. I had it last year as a holiday read but it wasn't as funny as I expected for a Marian Keyes. I think I will read it again and do my own review. Thank you for the reminder that this is on my shelves
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