How exciting! I finish a book and decide to share my thoughts with you within less than a week! Shocking!

Love, Rosie by Cecelia Ahern

From the jacket: [Okay, I’m revising the book blurb because otherwise it gives away the whole novel] “… Best friends since childhood, [Rosie and Alex] separate as teenagers when Alex and his family relocate from Dublin to Boston. … Rosie and Alex stay friends, and though years pass and weddings, funerals, and baptisms take place, the two remain firmly attached via e-mails and letters…”

My take: Steph sent me this novel last December as part of the 2009 Book Bloggers Holiday Swap. I started it right away and immediately was pulled into the story. An epistolary novel, Love, Rosie gives us a glimpse into the relationship of Rosie and Alex, who met as children and stayed best friends through their whole lives, despite a trans-Atlantic move for Alex as a teenager. Their correspondence (with each other and with relatives, other friends, and significant acquaintances) matures from misspelled notes to letters, emails, and IMs sharing their biggest challenges and deepest thoughts.

Well, that’s not entirely true. Each of them has a secret they’re keeping from the other.

And it’s the combination of those secrets and the eavesdropping intimacy of Rosie and Alex’s correspondence that made me put this book down in fuming frustration precisely halfway through last winter.

When I was telling Grey Kitten about this novel over the weekend, I shared that the friends who know me in real life would find it hilarious that I put it down because I couldn’t stand one more minute of the main characters’ inability to enact positive changes on their own lives, that their choosing to remain stuck in their ruts had just driven me crazy. Sound familiar much?

I’m so glad I picked it back up last week, though. Both Rosie and Alex are characters that you care about, a sense heightened by knowing them only through their letters. You want them both to be happy and you appreciate that theirs is a long-term friendship that has weathered many storms, albeit sometimes just barely. Reading their notes reminded me of those I’ve shared with Karen and Grey Kitten over the years and our own ups and downs. It made me appreciate all the good times we’ve had and how they’re both always there for me, regardless of the stupid mistakes I make (sometimes repeatedly). Our friendships can now be discussed in multiples of decades and, like Rosie’s and Alex’s, make life so much richer.

So, if you have a friendship like that, I’d recommend reading Love, Rosie. You’ll be glad that you did.

Pages: 447