Title: The Book of Tomorrow
Author: Cecelia Ahern [website] [facebook]
Genre: Chick Lit, Contemporary Fiction, Mystery
Publisher: Harper
Format: Paperback
Source: Publisher
Parental Advisory: alcohol, drugs, criminal activity, sex, suicide
Teachable Moments: honesty, familial relations, coping with loss

“Mum would keep the new shell she’d grown over the past few months, and she would carry it around with her for the rest of her life, but that didn’t mean she would disappear into it.  I saw proof that day that Mum hadn’t disappeared for good; I saw it in her eyes.  I remember the exact moment when I saw her again.  It was at one o’clock.”

Summary:
Born into the lap of luxury, comfortable in the here and now, spoiled, tempestuous sixteen-year-old Tamara Goodwin has never had to look to tomorrow until the abrupt death of her father irrevocably shakes her world.  Suddenly all that’s left of Tamara’s old life is a mountain of debt, and she and her mother are forced to move in with Tamara’s uncle and aunt a million miles away fromt he world she knows.

In this tiny village in the Irish countryside, with no access to Facebook or Twitter, Tamara is lonely and bored — her only diversion is a traveling library run by a cute local boy named Marcus.  There she finds a large leather-bound book with a gold clasp and padlock, but no author name or title.  Intrigued, she pries the lock open.  And what she finds inside takes her breath away.

Tamara finds entries written in her handwriting and dated for the next day.  At first, she’s skeptical.   But when the next day happens exactly as recorded, Tamara realizes she’s found a way to solve mysteries that are seemingly out of her control, such as what is wrong with her mother and why her family won’t let the local doctor examine her.  And why does her meek aunt Rosaleen rip the mail out of her hands, prevent her from seeing her mother, and evade questions about their mysterious neighbor.  Determined to find answers, Tamara learns that some pages are better left unturned and that, try as she might, she can’t interfere with fate.

Opinion:
A book written for the adult market that certainly appeals to the reader of young adult literature The Book of Tomorrow effectively intertwines the contemporary, mystery and paranormal genres together for an interesting and twisty read.

I’ve not read any of Ahern’s work previously (though have seen movies based on it) so I admit it took me a bit to get used to the lengthy prose.  A slow starter, this book hit it’s stride several chapters in until I found myself not wanting to put it down.  Painting a vivid picture of her characters and their surroundings Ahern’s descriptive prose makes way for dialogue that is focused and brief while inner monologue tends to be of lengthier support.  It is there that I was provided the most insight into the story’s overall meaning and movement.

This book was not without predictability.  I knew where the plot was going pretty early on and the end did not surprise me at all.  This was not disappointing, however, because the story had an interesting journey.  While reading the book I approached development more at the character versus plot level.

The main reason for doing so was because primary character Tamara is presents herself as the stero-typical rich girl who only cares about status and material wealth.  However, as I read on I was intrigued by how she had much more depth and feeling than expected.  She was not the careless rich and popular girl she wanted people to see she but was actually confused and longing for more out of her life.  Sure, she has her moments of shallowness but at the age of sixteen who doesn’t?  It would have been more out of character for her to be happy with the sudden changes in her life than to struggle against them.

Aunt Rosaleen, on the other hand, was pretty one dimensional.  BUT, in this case it suited the story so while I found her supremely irritating that was really the point.  Ahern wanted me to find her as bothersome and puzzling as Tamara did.  In that way Ahern scored a goal because I really did.  Like Tamara, every time Rosaleen showed up I wanted to scream.  It was tremendously frustrating.  BUT, again that went a long way towards amping up the tension and ultimately progressing the story.

There was an interesting cast of secondary characters as well — Tamara’s socialite mother, her recently departed father, a quietly weak uncle afraid to rock the boat, a bevy of status hungry friends left behind, a couple of potential boyfriends and a smooth talking nun who won’t divulge the past. Each of which played a role in how Tamara came to grips with the loss of her family as well as navigated several key revelations that would impact how they rebuilt in the future.

The one major gripe I have about this book (and this will get spoilery so stop reading this paragraph if you don’t want to know) is that there was no real explanation for the book of tomorrow.  In books such as this, those that aren’t intended to be paranormal and are primarily true to life/contemporary reads, adding in a single otherworldly element without any background to it makes it harder for me to believe.  I’m not saying the element of the book shouldn’t have been used, in fact I liked how it was infused into the story and how it progressed the plot, but I’m a girl that likes to know the hows and whys and in this case there was none of that.  I was expected to believe in it on blind faith.  I’m not good at blind faith (or ambiguous) a lot of the time and this was one of them.  In this case specifically I just really wanted to know how the book came into existence and how it worked.  It felt unsatisfying not knowing more.

Despite my own personal qualms with the element mentioned above this book was a great read. It’s one of those rare books that could appeal across genres and ages.  It is, in fact, a book that would act as a good gateway for teen readers who are interested in moving into more adult books from young adult lit.