Cecilia Ahern – Lyrebird

Popular Romantic Fiction really isn’t my thing. But this was one of the options in my online book club, and I thought I’d give Cecilia Ahern the benefit of the doubt. It can be refreshing to read a genre you wouldn’t normally read now and then. Also there are so few Irish Audiobooks, I’ve only listened to about 4 including this.

Plot: a documentary crew stumble upon a young woman with a unique talent for mimicry; Think Little Voice possessed by Michael Winslow and you have it.

This started off really well. I was quite surprised. Really well written realistic interesting characters. I was hooked from the start and enjoyed every bit of it. And then it all went wrong. The plot took a turn that I found as cheap and tacky as the TV show that got involved. I just didn’t enjoy this turn of events and hoped it would be short lived. But it stayed with it for the rest of the plot. I didn’t buy this at all. None of the characters would have gone along with this, and it really felt like a cheap and tacky plot diversion to prolong the oldest romance trope in the book: “Will they won’t they?”. What a disappointment to such a great start. It could have been so much better. Also I couldn’t help thinking I was reading a potential screenplay for a hollywood romance.

I never hated it. I never wanted to abandon it. And I never got bored. And I liked most of the characters. But I found this whole section of the book, which was the majority of the plot, very disappointing which only confirmed the suspicion that popular romance doesn’t have much to offer me. Particularly if tacky cliched plot devices are the best they have to offer.

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