For me Christmas time has always been that time of the year when it is OK not to even glance at exam books and just curl up with an enchanting book and a few chocolate truffles. It is also the time when many people like to buy books as gifts and therefore I’d like to share one of my favourites with you, The Best of Times by Penny Vincenzi. It’s one of those books I just couldn’t put down after starting. And after finishing it, I truly felt connected with the characters and kept thinking about how their lives would go on.
At first sight the book has illegally too many characters; the first two pages just cover a list of the characters with brief descriptions. I must admit that the first time I saw it, I was almost ready to put the book down – I thought that reading the book would include going back to the first pages all the time, now who would remember 49 characters? Well, apparently it’s actually very easy. Each character is complex and throughout the book they all develop in some way.
The book is about an incident that connects many people who didn’t know each other before – all of their lives change in a domino effect; some worlds are torn apart, love affairs are ended while some are ignited. It’s a book that shows how everything can change in a blink of an eye on an ordinary afternoon.
What I loved the most is that each character is complex and throughout the book they all develop in some way. It is an indulgent read which is written with amazing personalization and instead of just one story, it is several stories. Despite of several narrators the stories are woven together in such a way that you still truly get to know all the characters and their stories.
It is definitely chicklit but much more serious than most other books in the same category. It also is one of those books that has a happy ending – but then again, doesn’t life always have a happy ending if we just keep our eyes open? It is a story that tackles everyone’s subconscious fear – what if something happens one day and changes our lives completely?
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