I love battered books actually >,<

The Gift | Cecelia Ahern | August 2009 | 305 pages 

Synopsis:

Everyday Lou Suffern battled with the clock. He always had two places to be at the same time. He always had two things to do at once. When asleep he dreamed. In between dreams, he ran through the events of the day while making plans for the next. When at home with his wife and family, his mind was always someplace else.

As Christmas draws closer, Lou starts to understand the value of time. He sees what is truly important in life yet at the same time he learns the harshest lesson of all.

This is a story about people who not unlike parcels, hide secrets. They cover themselves in layers until the right person unwraps them and discovers what’s inside. Sometimes you have to be unravelled in order to find out who you really are. For Lou Suffern, that took time. (Source: Goodreads)


This is the book that cures my reader's block. I read The Gift half-way through before I changed to KAMPUS. Habit, sometimes I prefer reading one to two books in the same period of time interchangeably. I got this novel from my university library, along with another few novels from the leisure section.

Impression?
One of the reasons I chose Cecelia Ahern's novel is that because I know how magical her writings could be.
Even though I am not a big fan of Women's Literature (Chick-Lit sounds... a bit off btw) because I am more into myths-adventures-contemporaries kind of girl, Cecelia Ahern's made me love them.

The Gift is a novel that lays in the middle of contemporaries and melancholics drama. I still could not figure it out. Reading this novel made me feels like watching a movie. The 'breezy' word choices, good sentence structures, interlaced with a dramatic plot are making this novel weirdly easy to read. Even with one of the most cliche theme - time, she managed to wrap it beautifully.

Time can't be given. But it can be shared.” 

― Cecelia Ahern, The Gift

Should you read them?
Personally, yes - if you love a novel that centralizes around family relationship. This novel is about a man who is always there but not 'there'; strive for the best he did not have yet while letting go the best that he had. It is a mix of fantasy and family drama.

Lessons I've learnt from this novel?

• Sometimes, we have to make choices that we did not like - and bear consequences from them.
• Just because we are families, and we are tied by blood - it does not mean it cannot be broken.
• For every chance that is given, make good use of it.