Book review: The Book of Tomorrow

Title: The Book of Tomorrow
Author: Cecelia Ahern
Published by: Harper Collins
Rating:****

If you do a net search on 28-year-old Cecelia Ahern you will possibly find out that she is the daughter of former Irish Taoiseach (prime minister) Bertie Ahern. You might also find out that she is the sister-in-law of Nicky Byrne of pop group Westlife, that she had a daughter last year and that she is blond and beautiful.

What you might not find out is how good her writing is. That’ll happen when you read her books. Her first novel PS, I Love You hit no 1 in Ireland, then became an international bestseller before being adapted into a Hollywood movie starring Oscar winner Hilary Swank. The books that followed were as successful.

Now her new offering, The Book of Tomorrow, is out in
India. It deals, as much of her work does, with magical realism. And addresses a question most of us would at some point have wondered about — What if one found a way in which one could divine thefuture for oneself…if not long term, then at least for the next day?

Central heroine Tamara Goodwin wants for nothing until her dad commits suicide…then her world is turned upside down as the family is forced to sell everything to cover debts. Exchanging her plush mansion with its private beach for her aunt and uncle’s country house is only the beginning of an ideological change that includes different friends, new ways of relating and a range of experiences that ultimately transform not just Tamara’s worldview but her very sense of identity. And it all happens when she stumbles upon a book in a travelling library that appears blank — only to be filled with musings in her own words, of what is to transpire the next day… words she is sure she could not ever have written.

Engrossing, entertaining and thought provoking — Ahern’s fast paced novel fuses the fantastic and the fundamental, draws on the mystical history and folklore associated with Ireland to capture and hold the reader cover to cover. In an increasing milieu of ten minute reads, this one stands apart.