Bibliofemme Bookclub An Irish Bookclub

Not all books have the same target audience or aspire to literary greatness. PS, I Love You is not great literature, it is, I suppose, something to wipe the sand off with.

However, for a book of this category its main topic is that of grief, the grief of a young widow and her life in the year following her husband’s death; this encapsulating struggles with her friends, family and getting her life together.

There is no doubting from the very beginning of this novel that the author is young – younger in fact than the character portrayed. The characterisation lacks depth of experience and does not seem to benefit from any prolonged research. Yes, we could decide that this is a portrayal of an immature 29 or 30-year-old woman who has been closeted within her marriage, big house with garden and comfortably off family. Yet the grieving process does not just consist of moping and sniffing jumpers. I believe the author has made some efforts to understand it more fully – in particular her attention to the surprise of who is supportive following a bereavement, but ends up with a shallow, and at times jarring, portrayal.

And so to the hook – the deceased husband prior to his death sends Holly a parcel containing notes with instructions on them – one for each of the following ten months. I have decided that this husband is characterised as a man who knows his wife isn’t up to much; as the instructions are banal to say the least – “buy a new outfit”, any woman can do this by herself, maybe this is a gentle reminder from the deceased that life needs to slowly go on in the most simple of manners and Holly needs to remember that she is an attractive young woman, yet this is not articulated.

I think there is the beginnings of a beach book author here but if I was her editor I would question her methodologies as she seems to be two decidedly unreliable methods of “research”; what the author knows (little pink tops and holidays in the Canaries), which is used whether it is really relevant or not, and what she imagines, which quite often annoys due to its lack of authenticity eg internet usage in Dublin libraries is free and needs to be booked, you can’t turn up to use a machine and be left in tears with a bill for €15 for 44 minutes, and anyway if your husband was in marketing and has a computer at home and you are so handy on it would you not have internet access!! Bridal boutiques predominantly need appointments; you cannot trail around 20 in Dublin without the sniff of a prior phone call! Yes it will piss you off every now and again.

OK, I’m not quite saying it is awful, the premise could allow for a very interesting story, however this is not it. Clap on the back – you wrote a book, got it published, that’s all well and good. But the quality of writing in this novel is akin to a leaving certificate essay. The Joe Duffy phone lines will be alive with the sounds of “ah leave the poor girl alone,” but if you write a book you are open to criticism and well, I could go on and on – unsympathetic shallow characters, obvious and uninteresting plot development, poor descriptive capacity. I’m not criticising ‘cos you’re famous love, it’s because this story should have stayed on the computer for a couple of years, until it was in the hands of a mature and capable writer. Really I blame the editor as whatever talent this girl showed obviously wasn’t given the help it needed.

Would I recommend it? No. If I didn’t have to read it would I have? No. What if your Aunt Maureen gave it to you for Christmas? Well, wait until you are desperate for something to read, umm no scratch that – there is always last week’s newspaper.