Monday 10 April 2017

Book Review - Now That I've Found You by Ciara Geraghty - Rachel Reads Randomly Book #59

Amazon UK
Title: Now That I've Found You
Author: Ciara Geraghty
Format reviewed: Paperback
Source: Competition Win
Publisher: Hodder & Stoughton 
Publication Date: 3rd July 2014
Rating: 3.5 Stars


Vinnie is an ordinary man. Ellen is an ordinary woman. 

Ellen is unable to move on after a terrible accident that left her mentally and physically scarred. 
Taxi driver Vinnie is struggling to cope with bringing up two children on his own. 
Everyone deserves to find that one person who's meant for them, don't they? 

Fall in love with the story of Vinnie and Ellen. Because ordinary lives can be extraordinary.

It's true what the blurb says, the story is about two very ordinary people, whose lives interconnect in a number of ways.  The narrative styles of the two characters is also different. When its Ellen's small chapters, we see her writing letters to Neil, expressing initially her grief, and then moving forward as she slowly starts to make changes to her life. 

And then there is Vinnie. He is a single dad to Kerry (14) and Finn (7), works as a taxi and limo driver, and is just trying his hardest to earn an honest living and do the best for his kids. Ellen is one of his regular taxi fares and on one day more interaction between them is needed, and it sows the seeds of a friendship. 

I really enjoyed seeing Vinnie's interactions with his kids. Finn is struggling to get used to life without his mum, he doesn't really understand why she isn't living with them anymore, and Kerry is just discovering boys, and also getting into trouble at school. They could be just about any regular family around. 

One of Vinnie's mates is Kenny and I couldn't help but end up confused on numerous occasions during the book, as I seemed to only remember Kenny or Kerry as I was reading them,  and I kept getting them muddled in my mind, due to the two letter difference in spellings. 

Ellen's story was sad but as she talks more to Vinnie, I started to like her a lot more as the story progressed. However as the chapters from her perspective were short and only interspersed in amongst the main Vinnie story, I found it hard to connect with her properly. 

The descriptions and speech patterns all were authentic, and gave you a good feel for what was going on, however the book just didn't work as well as it should do for me. I can't help but feel a bit flat after reading this, but without being able to put my finger on why. I would definitely give this author another go, and it could just be that I read the wrong book on the wrong day. 

Thank you to everyone that picked Now That I've Found You, its a book I had had my eye on for a while, just a shame I seemed to struggle a bit with it. I am already looking forward to seeing the outcome of this weeks vote. 

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