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A review by cityofstarlight_library
If You Could See Me Now by Cecelia Ahern
1.0
Minor spoilers (only for the first 15% because DNF)
---
Well, this book certainly takes the award for the most unusual book I've read in quite a while. Let me summarise what it's about in a sentence; a woman falls in love with her 6 year old nephews invisible friend.
No, I'm not kidding. This is the book. I'm really baffled at why she thought to write this but some people on GoodReads seem to really love it, so each to their own. This just wasn't my cup of tea. At all. I don't really have many good things to say about it but I have read Cecelia Ahern before, quite a few times actually, and this is the only one I didn't like. This isn't going to put me off reading her, you can't always like everything an author writes.
Anyway, let me get down to business. Why did I not like this book?
o1. Ivan.
So he is the invisible guy. He randomly one day see's Elizabeth's (the protagonist) nephew playing outside and thought 'ooh look, a young child, let me go over and play with him. That's not creepy at all'
Que? He sounds a bit like a pervert, not going to lie. He talks and acts incredibly childlike, but we don't actually know his age because he's not really human. I don't even think Ivan knows what he is, he's just as confused as we are. He's very vague with explaining about himself, he's like 'Well, I'm not human, but I'm not an alien, I might be this or that' dude, please just explain. Who the heck are you? To me, he's just The Ghost of Perverts Past. He also mentions about this being some kind of job, like he has a job in some kind of alternative ghost world, and I just don't understand. We get no explanations about this at all. Look, I love fantasy and I'm all for the weird and strange stories but this one was just too unclear.
So anyway, strange Ivan has found a kid he likes, and considering he has the 'Power of Friendship' (????), they strike up a friendship, freaking out the protag Elizabeth a bit because she is like 'uh, my nephew is weird, he talks to himself and I'm a career woman who knows nothing about kidsm fml'.
This brings me to my next issue.
o2. Ivan is a stalker.
He watches Elizabeth sleep, eat, follows her around the house, he blows on the back of her neck to see if she feels it. It's just all a little strange. Poor woman must have felt so uncomfortable because she knew there was something going on. He's infatuated with her and when she starts to show signs that she could potentially see or feel him, he just gets obsessed. I didn't get far enough into the story to see how she falls in love with this very odd and problematic 'ghost' but I'm not bothered enough to find out. Maybe he's just haunting her, I don't know, it's probably just a ghost thing.
o3. Elizabeth.
Ugh. Just, ugh. All she does is what I'm doing now - complain. I'm not one for reading someone in a novel just going 'woe is me, my life sucks' and mentioning about 6000 times about her sister and family in general. I'm reading a novel to be entertained and to see people tackle what's making them complain. She's just boring. I can't say I was fond of her, and I can honestly say that I judge for too for falling in love with a fucking ghost that is basically a kid. There's just too many layers of weird and discomfort for me to get into this.
Also, what would it look like if she's kissing an invisible man. I'm cracking up just thinking about it! You've seen Scary Movie 2, right? Oh dear god.
I can't. It's not for me.
---
Well, this book certainly takes the award for the most unusual book I've read in quite a while. Let me summarise what it's about in a sentence; a woman falls in love with her 6 year old nephews invisible friend.
No, I'm not kidding. This is the book. I'm really baffled at why she thought to write this but some people on GoodReads seem to really love it, so each to their own. This just wasn't my cup of tea. At all. I don't really have many good things to say about it but I have read Cecelia Ahern before, quite a few times actually, and this is the only one I didn't like. This isn't going to put me off reading her, you can't always like everything an author writes.
Anyway, let me get down to business. Why did I not like this book?
o1. Ivan.
So he is the invisible guy. He randomly one day see's Elizabeth's (the protagonist) nephew playing outside and thought 'ooh look, a young child, let me go over and play with him. That's not creepy at all'
Que? He sounds a bit like a pervert, not going to lie. He talks and acts incredibly childlike, but we don't actually know his age because he's not really human. I don't even think Ivan knows what he is, he's just as confused as we are. He's very vague with explaining about himself, he's like 'Well, I'm not human, but I'm not an alien, I might be this or that' dude, please just explain. Who the heck are you? To me, he's just The Ghost of Perverts Past. He also mentions about this being some kind of job, like he has a job in some kind of alternative ghost world, and I just don't understand. We get no explanations about this at all. Look, I love fantasy and I'm all for the weird and strange stories but this one was just too unclear.
So anyway, strange Ivan has found a kid he likes, and considering he has the 'Power of Friendship' (????), they strike up a friendship, freaking out the protag Elizabeth a bit because she is like 'uh, my nephew is weird, he talks to himself and I'm a career woman who knows nothing about kidsm fml'.
This brings me to my next issue.
o2. Ivan is a stalker.
He watches Elizabeth sleep, eat, follows her around the house, he blows on the back of her neck to see if she feels it. It's just all a little strange. Poor woman must have felt so uncomfortable because she knew there was something going on. He's infatuated with her and when she starts to show signs that she could potentially see or feel him, he just gets obsessed. I didn't get far enough into the story to see how she falls in love with this very odd and problematic 'ghost' but I'm not bothered enough to find out. Maybe he's just haunting her, I don't know, it's probably just a ghost thing.
o3. Elizabeth.
Ugh. Just, ugh. All she does is what I'm doing now - complain. I'm not one for reading someone in a novel just going 'woe is me, my life sucks' and mentioning about 6000 times about her sister and family in general. I'm reading a novel to be entertained and to see people tackle what's making them complain. She's just boring. I can't say I was fond of her, and I can honestly say that I judge for too for falling in love with a fucking ghost that is basically a kid. There's just too many layers of weird and discomfort for me to get into this.
Also, what would it look like if she's kissing an invisible man. I'm cracking up just thinking about it! You've seen Scary Movie 2, right? Oh dear god.
I can't. It's not for me.