SPOILERS AHEAD - do not read if you plan to read this book!!

I've had a sense of deja vu lately when I've been reading. One was with Remember Me? and the other one was with this great one by Marion Keyes. It's been ages since I read PS I Love You by Cecilia Ahern but I think the premise was similar - in this one, the main character has been seriously injured in a car crash that has killed her newlywed husband. She is in denial of this fact for the first third of the book but then comes to accept it and is in grim pursuit of trying to communicate with him, along with dealing with her friends sympathy and trying to keep her job at a cosmetics firm. I loved it - she's an Irish woman living in NYC and her family back in Dublin is hilarious, and the twist at the end of the book brings it to a satisfying conclusion. I don't think I've ever been let down by Marion Keyes.

I was engrossed in this book. It’s funny, full of great characters with an engaging and entertaining plot.

I mentally classify most novels into one of two broad categories: Literature or Crap. Within the Crap category there are several further levels. Books with negligible literary attributes (like no plot, no character development, poor writing, etc....ehh hmmm... Twilight) fall into the "Watching TV" category (because reading one of these books is the intellectual equivalent and takes the same amount of effort as sitting through a TV show). Marian Keyes' books definitely do not fall into the Literature category because they don't offer much in the way of new insights or artistic use of language, but as far as Crap goes, they are pretty high quality. They are extremely funny and the writing is surprisingly GOOD! I definitely couldn't write that well while maintaining such a complexity of characters and plot lines for 600 pages. That's for sure.

Her books are belittlingly labeled as "chick lit", forever dooming serious readers to deny having enjoyed them. But thinking about it, (and in an effort to justify my own enjoyment,) the whole chick lit phenomenon is remarkably anti-feminist. Why is there no equivalent nomen for books about traditionally testosterone-y topics like war, fist fights and cars ("dick lit" or "prick lit" are two possible suggestions - no more vulgar than "chick lit" mind you)? Personally, I'd much rather lose myself in a book about a peaceful topic like human relationships (romantic, familial or professional) and the beauty industry, than something bloody and violent. The fact that I am capable of losing myself in 600 pages about cosmetics, a topic that I know absolutely nothing about and have no interest in, is testament to the quality and pace of the writing and the story. Three stars instead of four because, without giving anything away, parts of the theme were really depressing.

Powerful narrative.

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