Where Rainbows End (Love, Rosie) by Cecelia Ahern || Review

I love you with all my heart, I have always loved you even when I was seven years old and lied about falling asleep on Santa watch, when I was ten years old and didn’t invite you to my birthday party, when I was eighteen and had to move away, even on my wedding days, on your wedding day, on christenings, birthdays, and when we fought. I loved you through it all. Make me the happiest man on this earth by being with me…

I never thought I’m going to read a book like Where Rainbows End. I only made myself read it because of the movie coming out and I have this rule about movies adapted from books: read the book first before watching the movie. So there it is. I’ve read the book after a friend of mine told me she’s reading it too before she sees the movie which is more than a month from now.

Anyways. The book is about a girl named Rosie and a boy named Alex. They are friends. That’s the problem.

Rosie is a girl who loves passing notes with her bestfriend in class. She’s your average teenage girl: curious and adventurous. However, she’s so indecisive with her life but she seems to have made a decision (finally!), there seems to be something that holds her back everytime.

Alex is Rosie’s bestest friend in the world. He’s smart and thoughtful and every bit the teenage boy that he is. That is, until his family moved from Dublin Ireland to Boston where his father got offered a job. He had to go. He was one step closer to getting her dream of becoming a life saving doctor when he’s there.

That was when things start to change between them. A long distance friendship was bound to fail but that didn’t happen for them. They write e-mails and letters to each other, sending IMs whenever they can, they’re still bestfriends though they’re seperated by a large body of water. She’s planning on following him to Boston where she got accepted to college while he was accepted to Harvard to study medicine. It was all too good… Too perfect. Until he missed his flight back to Ireland for the dance. Rosie went with someone else instead of Alex and the tables were turned that night. Everything changes. Rosie won’t go to Boston anymore. She’s not going to college. In fact, she’s not going anywhere because she’s pregnant.

Time pass and their friendshop grows. Rosie becomes a mother, Alex married his college sweetheart (who’s also a doctor) and they stayed friends. She hates his wife (and she’s not afraid to admit that) and the wife thinks–no, believe, that male and female can’t be ‘just friends’. Rosie gets married, Alex get divorced. Years passed and they’re still friends.

Rosie gets cheated on by her husband, Alex was there for her. Many other things happened yet, they’re still there for each other. Over the years, they knew they fell in love with each other but was so scared to put their friendship on the line and the time seems to not favor them at all. When will their time come?

Where Rainbows End is a very long read. Perhaps not that long since it’s not in the usual novel format. The novel was written in such a way that Rosie’s life was told through letters starting from her 7th birthday up until she’s 50 years old. The story was long and dragging but I was never bored while reading it. The letters have their own character. You can definitely see how the characters are by the way they write. It was a really fun read and the premise of people actually writing letters to each other (the actual letters with stamps and all) is very interesting as we all live in a fast advancing world. You can definitely see the difference between e-mails and snail mails. You can see just how intimate and more important written letters are.

The characters started really young and you could feel like you’re growing old with them. From being toddlers to teenagers to almost adults to middle aged and so on…. Changes are constant but Rosie’s and Alex’s friendship hasn’t changed a bit. I’d love to have a friend like Alex! He’s just so sweet and thoughtful that I wish he was my best friend.

I was so hooked with the book that I wasn’t able to put down the book except when I needed to sleep badly or I’m at school and needs to pay attention in class. It was really nice and inspiring to read. Now, I can’t help but wonder how the movie adaptation would look like. Perhaps I’ll review the movie too and compare it to the book after I’ve watched the movie. As for the book, I’ve given it 4 out of 5 stars.