Constance

Title: Constance

Author: Rosie Thomas

Genre: Contemporary

Time: 6.4 hours

2015 Book Challenge: a book written by an author with your same initials

This challenge limited my options because I didn’t know any authors with the same initials as I did, let alone a good one at that.  Thank god for google.  I originally went with Iris and Ruby as it had a lot great reviews.  But after a few attempts of trying to read it, it just didn’t click.  Maybe it was just bad timing.. same thing happened to me with Gone Girl, I tried to read it a few times but didn’t feel like it.  After a year, I tried it again and now it’s one of the books I would recommend.

 

So I decided to try her other books, maybe it would do it for me.  It was the intro that hooked me into this one—a mysterious, abandoned baby found by two teenagers.  I really thought we’d find out in the end who Constance’s mother was.  Another thing that didn’t go as I wanted was Roxana’s story.  I hoped she’d triumph in the end and become a very successful “English girl” she worked so hard to be.  Instead, she went back home to be with her brother (who would probably die in jail waiting for justice).  But I guess that’s how life is sometimes, you don’t always get what you want.

 

This was a nice read.  Pace is easy.  The flashbacks to the sisters’ childhood showing their animosity to each and switching back and forth with their gradual reconciliation gave the book a “coming-of-age” kinda feel to it.  The only thing I didn’t like was Constance ending up with her dead sister’s husband.  I know they waited a respectable 1 year after the death but it already felt iffy to me when she had an affair with him when the sister was still alive.  You might argue “true love,””soul mate” and all that but it’s just weird carrying on with both sisters (even if technically they weren’t biologically related).  But hey, that’s just me.