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A review by laurpar
The Book of Tomorrow by Cecelia Ahern
4.0
This was my first real audio book, and I quite enjoyed it. I’ve never been a fan of audio books. I’m the kind of person who hates to be read to. I could always read much faster than a teacher or narrator could in class, so I saw no use sitting around waiting for someone else to read a story; I simply had to finish it first. I tried out a Georgette Heyer audio book a few months back, and I absolutely hated it. The narrator’s voice sounded very arrogant, and I kept having to resist the urge to whip my steering wheel around every time something surprising happened in the plot. It was very distracting, and I couldn’t get into it.
The Book of Tomorrow, however, was a completely different story. It follows a girl named Tamara as she copes with her father’s suicide and her affluent family’s sudden poverty. She leaves her posh Dublin mansion and ends up living in the countryside with her strange aunt and uncle. A spoiled brat, Tamara suddenly finds herself having to make due without her private jet, multiple vacation homes, swimming pool, and tennis courts. Instead, she oddly takes refuge in the ruins of an old castle adjoining her uncle’s property, burnt down in a horrible fire decades before. She spends her days caring for her sick mother, making a few odd new friends, and reading a secret diary that seems to tell the events that will take place the following day. The diary, or the “book of tomorrow,” helps Tamara make better decisions, one day at a time. The story is basically a coming-of-age tale of a young woman recovering from a devastating shock.
Meanwhile, though, there is mystery: strange feelings, unanswered questions, and suspicious activity all have Tamara on high alert. A few chapters away from the end, a few things clicked for me, but upon reaching the climax, I realized that the whole story was a lot more intricate than I originally suspected. As there is already a hint of magic with the future-telling diary, the mystery becomes even more intriguing.
At first, Tamara seems like a really hard person to relate to. She’s around high school age, which is young for the kind of books I usually read, and she’s led a very priviledged life. As the book continues, though, she becomes more sympathetic of the people around her and aware when she’s acting out because of the teenage hormones surging through her body. She becomes endearing as she begins to process the things happening in her life.
At points, the audio version of this text was a little hard to understand. With one reader and a first-person narration, it was sometimes hard to distinguish what was a diary entry and what was really happening in audio-form. However, I really loved the reader’s Irish accent (even though I found myself trying to repeat what she was saying and had to rewind the CD a few times), and it added a lot to the atmosphere of the book (can books have atmospheres? I think so). Also, whenever the narrator said “The Book of Tomorrow,” “tomorrow” sounded a lot like “Tamara” with her accent, which I thought was really cute.
Anyway, I really enjoyed the book. The audio version of it was nice on my hour-long commute in the mornings and 1.5 hour commute in the evenings, but after coming back from work last night at the height of the most important part of the book, I had to take the last CD inside with me and listen to the last few chapters on my computer.
Altogether, I enjoyed the book very, very much, and I am anxious to check out other books by Ahern.
The Book of Tomorrow, however, was a completely different story. It follows a girl named Tamara as she copes with her father’s suicide and her affluent family’s sudden poverty. She leaves her posh Dublin mansion and ends up living in the countryside with her strange aunt and uncle. A spoiled brat, Tamara suddenly finds herself having to make due without her private jet, multiple vacation homes, swimming pool, and tennis courts. Instead, she oddly takes refuge in the ruins of an old castle adjoining her uncle’s property, burnt down in a horrible fire decades before. She spends her days caring for her sick mother, making a few odd new friends, and reading a secret diary that seems to tell the events that will take place the following day. The diary, or the “book of tomorrow,” helps Tamara make better decisions, one day at a time. The story is basically a coming-of-age tale of a young woman recovering from a devastating shock.
Meanwhile, though, there is mystery: strange feelings, unanswered questions, and suspicious activity all have Tamara on high alert. A few chapters away from the end, a few things clicked for me, but upon reaching the climax, I realized that the whole story was a lot more intricate than I originally suspected. As there is already a hint of magic with the future-telling diary, the mystery becomes even more intriguing.
At first, Tamara seems like a really hard person to relate to. She’s around high school age, which is young for the kind of books I usually read, and she’s led a very priviledged life. As the book continues, though, she becomes more sympathetic of the people around her and aware when she’s acting out because of the teenage hormones surging through her body. She becomes endearing as she begins to process the things happening in her life.
At points, the audio version of this text was a little hard to understand. With one reader and a first-person narration, it was sometimes hard to distinguish what was a diary entry and what was really happening in audio-form. However, I really loved the reader’s Irish accent (even though I found myself trying to repeat what she was saying and had to rewind the CD a few times), and it added a lot to the atmosphere of the book (can books have atmospheres? I think so). Also, whenever the narrator said “The Book of Tomorrow,” “tomorrow” sounded a lot like “Tamara” with her accent, which I thought was really cute.
Anyway, I really enjoyed the book. The audio version of it was nice on my hour-long commute in the mornings and 1.5 hour commute in the evenings, but after coming back from work last night at the height of the most important part of the book, I had to take the last CD inside with me and listen to the last few chapters on my computer.
Altogether, I enjoyed the book very, very much, and I am anxious to check out other books by Ahern.