The Gift- Cecelia Ahern


[review on request]

Author- Cecelia Ahern

Best seller: P.S I love you..

Synopsis: From the book
People, like houses, hold their secrets. Sometimes the secrets inhabit them, and sometimes people inhabit their secrets. They wrap their arms tight to hug them close, twist their lying tongues around the truth. But, like gravy left overnight, the truth is a thin layer of film that forms and covers the surface. The truth prevails, rises above all else. It squirms and wriggles inside, grows until the swollen tongue can‘t wrap itself around the lie any longer, until the time comes when it needs to spit the words out and send truth flying through the air and crashing into the world like…well, like a frozen dead bird through a living room window. Truth and time always work alongside each other.
This story is about people, secrets, and time. About people who, not unlike wrapped parcels, cover themselves with layers and layers until they present themselves to the right ones who can unwrap them and see inside. Until that happens they lie under a tree, being poked and prodded by unwelcome hands. Sometimes you have to give yourself to somebody in order to see who you are. Sometimes you have to let that person unravel things to get to the core.
This is a story about people who find out who they are. About people who are unraveled and whose cores are revealed to all who count. And those who count are finally revealed to them. Just in time.


Excerpts:
LOU SUFFERN ALWAYS HAD TWO places to be at one time. When asleep, he dreamed. In between dreams, he ran through the events of the previous day while making plans for the next, so when he was awakened by his alarm at six a.m. every day, he never felt very rested. When in the shower, he rehearsed presentations, often while responding, one hand outside the shower curtain, to e-mails on his BlackBerry. While eating breakfast he read the newspaper, and when being told rambling stories by his five-year-old daughter, he listened to the morning news. When his thirteen-month-old son demonstrated a new skill each day, Lou‘s face displayed interest, his mind feeling the exact opposite. When kissing his wife good-bye, he was usually thinking of someone else altogether.

Maithili Speaks:
When I heard of this book I thought, "Ok its by Cecelia Ahern so it must be about romance ( we still are under P. S I love effect when it comes to Cecelia Ahern) and its only 165 pages on pdf so I will review it quick!
    I was in for a surprise and yes what a Gift!!
Lou the workaholic who who is proud of his ability to juggle things one fine day chats up with a  homeless Gabriel or Gabe as he is called and stumbles upon the clever planning going on behind his back by his friend cum rival at the office- Alfred. Both Lou and Alfred and coveting the position of their sick superior and trying to earn brownie points from their boss Mr Patterson. 
     The observant shoe watcher gives him clues and Lou finds  a striking resemblance with Gabe. He finds himself offering Gabe a job in mailroom. 
    
  Lou's family life is almost non-existent as he continuously mails and texts away on his blackberry while his wife is trying to steal a little bit of his attention. He is deaf to his months old son's crying  and his 5 year old daughter's constant pleas for him to come to watch her play. He efficiently hands over the responsibility to arrange for his father's 70th birthday to his secretary Angela who doesn't even know his father! He missed dinners with family, makes promises he is isn't willing to keep, cheats his children..His only defense for his neglect of familial commitments is "work can fire me, family can't" and you feel like slapping him left right!!
     
Work is where he is the perfect guy. The man of the moment.. (never mind his escapades with girls from every department and his on going tad bit sleaze with his secretary). 
     But with Gabe in the office premises, things begin to change. Lou is left wondering how Gabe manages to reach places in a jiffy and is almost intimidated  by the liking his boss has taken to Gabe. Gabe wins hearts and miraculously is present at more than one place! 
     Soon Gabe gives off his secret to Lou and Lou discovers a truth he had been blind to.. It was the gift Gabe gave him.. 
     At the end of it you feel sorry for Lou and his family but there is also a positive side to it.. If I tell that then I will spoil the fun for you people.. So I would say it is definitely a good read with a strong message at the end..

Rating: 4.7 on 5

Price : INR 250

E-Book Link - THE GIFT

P.S| This was our first book request. Thank you SMITA for allowing us the pleasure of reviewing this wonderful book. Hope we have done justice to your questions. Keep Reading Us and Keep Requesting Reviews

12 comments:

  1. Thanks a lot for the lovely review :)
    I got The Gift as a gift and had started reading it the day I submitted it for review here and had finished before I read this review.Reason being,I was so into the book that it was hard for me to keep it down even for a second.
    I so loved the lovely review compiled by Maithili :) Thanks a tonn.Really loved the way I got a chance to refresh the story in this review.
    Big thanks :)

    ReplyDelete
  2. less than 200 pages ??
    perrfecto !! thank you much much for the pdf link :)
    Another nice review girlie .. me likes it .. and thank you for telling that this is NOT a love story :D I dnt read them much !!

    ReplyDelete
  3. Am glad you loved the book. its a surprise as i was expecting a romance genre or a chick-lit that is so synonymous with Ahern. This was a fresh refreshment from the monotonous

    ReplyDelete
  4. @nimue :D
    i gave the link :( mommy!!! acknowledge me too...lol... though i owe Maithili a lot since she kindly accepted my request to review it. Am already on 4 books. *phew*

    ReplyDelete
  5. @FL .. u r always d sweetest swt hrt ;) and 4 ??? am halfway through 5 of them .. 1 novel , 1 story colelction , 1 hindi book , 1 audio and 1 e book .. beat that :P

    ReplyDelete
  6. @nimue i forgot to add the graphic novel. Yeah reading Blondie... remember her?? newspaper comic strip. Blondie and Dagwood. Am reading the entire pre-marital strips :D

    ReplyDelete
  7. @FL uh no .. dnt know about it .. have to google :)
    some days i so want to get my hands on your collection of books ;)

    ReplyDelete
  8. @Nimue i will click some nice nice pics of my collection and then send it to you to make you jealous. bwahahaha

    ReplyDelete
  9. I so hate you FL !!!
    *stares and pouts*

    ReplyDelete
  10. @Smita: Glad you liked the review..considering this was our first requested review! Thanks so much for requesting.. Keep reading and requesting ;)
    Well what a nice gift to gift actually! Lovely!

    @Nimue: Yes Cecelia and romance go together don't they? So I made it clear so that no one else has this misconception.
    And I guess Freelancer has already taken the credit for sharing the link so I don't have to give him the credit anymore :P

    Thanks for appreciating my work though :)

    ReplyDelete
  11. @Freelancer : finally you acknowledge that I m a good admin no matter how irregular!! :D
    Thank you thank you :)

    ReplyDelete
  12. @Maithili: I had read this book one and a half years back...and I was instantly hooked to the style of writing that Cecilia Ahern exudes... :D :D A Beautiful Review, I recalled everything I had read! :D :D

    ReplyDelete

Keep reading, keep suggesting, keep commenting

Regional: 1980 by Anver Abdulla

  Though Anver Abdulla is an accomplished name in Malayalam Detective fiction ( he has given us some genuinely memorable detective Novels li...