Where Rainbows End / Love, Rosie

Title: Where Rainbows End / Love, Rosie

Author: Cecila Ahern

Genre: Epistolary, Romance

Time: 6.5 hours

Halfway through the book, I almost gave up on it.  I’m a bit disappointed because I love Cecila Ahern’s books.  But this was a miss for me.  It’s written like Sex in the City (the book) where it’s all a bunch of correspondence like notes, letters, emails and instant messages (or epistolary as it is properly called).  It spans around half a century but that is not why I almost gave up on it.

It started nice enough, when Rosie & Alex when they were still kids.  The notes and letters they sent were adorable and cute and quickly moving through their teens and the first major arc in their love story happened—Alex moves halfway across the ocean and to really drive the point in, Rosie gets pregnant by another guy.

Right from the start, I could already tell that they’re supposed to end up with each other, it’s only a matter of reaching the last chapter of the book.  So, Sally and Greg were the first collateral victims.  I feel bad for Sally.  Watching countless episodes of Grey’s Anatomy, I know how difficult it is for surgical interns and doctors to have some sort of social life, let alone a love life.  Their relationship already had the odds against them from the start but throw in a 3^rd party and you knew it wasn’t gonna survive.  Throughout their relationship, Alex was having an emotional affair with Rosie, so you knew their marriage was doomed from the start.  It kinda reminds me of the series finale for Will & Grace (have you noticed I watched too much TV?), where no matter how great Will & Grace’s friendship was—how it got them through college, their 1^st crappy jobs, boyfriends in their 20s, etc, etc, etc.. it reached a point where it became a toxic, co-dependent thing where it was no longer a healthy for their love life.  It show ended with them growing apart for a while, letting them grow into their relationships with their spouses.  If you haven’t watched it, don’t worry, it ends well.  They met again when their kids were in college leaving the audience to think that they picked up where they left off..  Which, for me, is a perfect time to rekindle a relationship like that because they are already settled and secured in their relationships with each of their spouses and it can now handle a 2^nd significant relationship.  But to have that kind of bond with another person during the start of a marriage, makes it hard for that relationship to grow, thrive and gain ground.  That was what happened to Sally and Alex and I feel sorry for Sally.  But anyway, I digress.

So now let’s talk about Greg… “what’s-his-name”… I got the sense from the start that we weren’t supposed to like him.  It started with how he “proposed wrong.”  Yeah, the writer really had to dig in how lame his proposal was and Alex would’ve done better.  But since that’s not enough for us to hate the guy—who took in and loved a single mother, accepting into his home and heart a child that wasn’t his.. the writer really need more than a lame proposal to get rid of Greg… so how do we do that? Let’s turn him into a cheater!  There’s no going back from that.  Need to be convinced more? Okay let’s make him cheat not once, but vaguely multiple times!  So bye bye Greg…

So at that point, I was already a bit annoyed with the whole thing, but I get it.  They’re supposed to go through life’s ups and downs eventually finding their way back to each other.  But when first collateral victims were now out of the way, what’s gonna be the next obstacle?  Let’s resurrect the old flames!

Bethany, the first girlfriend, and the baby-daddy are now back in the picture.  By then, I was sooo ready to give up on this book but I was halfway into it, so I said to myself, 2 more chapters. 

Then the book started to focus on other characters as Rosie and Alex had a huge fight and grew apart.  This continued on as the book skipped 10 years, which is a good thing, coz if they kept at it given that Alex was already married with kids, they would have been real selfish assholes.  I mean, if you are in love with someone else and kept having some sort of emotional affair with that person, then have the decency to break up with your spouse first.

So after skipping 10 years.. surprise, surprise… they ended up with each other… duh!  Also, I found it lame that Rosie’s daughter also had the same long-distance thing with her childhood best friend that turned into romance.  The only redeeming character in the whole book was Ruby.  I liked Ruby.  Ruby knew her shit.