A Place Called Here

Cecilia Ahern was a hit, with her novel, which is also now a movie with Hilary Swank as the lead entitled "P/S I Love You". I haven't read any of her books yet, even P/S I Love You, although I did watch half of the movie (which I didn't finish watching because I was so sleepy and I watched it online, you know the loading of videos!). I bought A Place Called Here (published 2006) a week ago, and it was an instant love.

A Place Called Here is about Sandy Shortt, an Irish lady who is six foot tall (in contrast with her surname-Shortt) and has dark black hair (another contrast with her name - Sandy). At the age of ten, Jenny-May Butler, neither a friend nor a foe of hers went missing, and she was never found. Sandy didn't like Jenny-May, she threw stones at her and embarrassed Sandy in front of the guy she liked. But somehow, the missing of Jenny-May effected Sandy, for the rest of her life.

Ever since Jenny-May went missing, Sandy didn't like the idea of missing things. She would label everything, organize everything and keep everything in it's place - so that it won't go missing. Yet, things disappear and she couldn't find them. She abhorred the idea of unsettled business, unexplainable missing things and how people simply forget everything they've lost and moved on with life. To cut story short, she lived her life like that, even as an adult. After high school, she worked as a garda/gardai (info), and searched missing people. She devoted her whole life finding missing people, and kept in touch with their families. Even after she quited the job, she kept on finding the missing people and met their family. She never gave up.

One of the people she tried to help was Jack Ruttle, whose brother went missing a year ago. After a few phone calls, Jack and Sandy decided to meet up and work on Jack's brother's case. However, like all those missing people, magically, Sandy herself went missing in action and Jack tried to find her. He thought it was awkward for someone to just disappear and conducted a search for her, with the help of Jenny's clients (families of the lost she had kept in touch with).

Jenny on the other hand, found herself in a strange place, in the woods of nowhere. Apparently, she is now in a place where all missing things went. She found the things she lost when she was a child, the people she devoted her life looking for, and most importantly, she had found Jenny-May Butler.

In the end, Sandy did came back to Earth (I mean, the real world, of course), and it was Jack who found her. Jack even found his brother, where he also looked for while he was searching Sandy and found out, his brother wasn't missing after all. He was killed, and to his shock, his brother's friend knew it all along.

Now, it won't be fun if  I tell you the whole story (which I sort of did hahah) so, I'd suggest you to borrow it from a nearby library or perhaps buy it.

My very personal opinion on this book - I think in a way every one of us is like Sandy. As for me, I think I just think too much and I tend to push people away from my life. I grew up as a sobered kid, with no friends. But I am kind of glad, I have opened up myself and my heart for friends, believing them and although some might betray me one day, God knows( another thing - I am very very negative, optimism was and is never my middle name) but I just think that's life. We gain some, we'll lose some. I loved the part where Sandy finally realised, she must move on and stop finding things because some things were meant to disappear - instead she should open herself up for her family and friends and most importantly to Gregory (The guy she loved her whole life but she can't seem to be with him, just because she's that kind of person). The journey to the other world, was actually an answer to all her findings, and a second chance for her to live her life to the fullest, for herself, devoting her efforts making her life meaningful and happy.

My most favorite part of the book, I quote from Chapter 40, page 359 :

I have found that the many imbalances within our individual lives result in an overall more worldly balance. What I mean is no matter how unfair I think something is, I need only look at the bigger picture to see how, in a way it fits. My dad was right when he said that there was no such thing as a free meal : everything comes at a cost to others, most of the time at a cost to ourselves. Whenever something is gained, it has to be taken from another place. When something is lost, it arrives elsewhere. There are the usual philosophical questions : why do bad things happen to good people? Within every bad thing I see good and likewise, withing every good thing I see bad, however impossible it is to understand it or see it at the time. As humans we are the epitome of life, in life there is always balance. Life and death, male and female, good and bad, beautiful and ugly, win and lose, love and hate. Lost and found.

This is a good read, and I strongly recommend it.

Read the professionally-written synopsis here. Visit Cecilia Ahern's website here.