Portobello Book Blog

In A Thousand Different Ways is the latest novel from Cecelia Ahern. It was published last month by Harper Collins and is available in hardback, audiobook and for e-readers. I am grateful to Sophie at Harper Collins for sending me an early copy for review.

About the book

Finding your way is never a simple journey…

Alice sees the worst in people.

She also sees the best.
She sees a thousand different emotions and knows exactly what everyone around her is feeling.
Every. Single. Day.

But it’s the dark thoughts.
The sadness. The rage.
These are the things she can’t get out of her head. The things that overwhelm her.

Where will the journey to find herself begin?

My Thoughts

I really enjoy Cecelia Ahern’s books and was looking forward to reading this one. Sadly, this wasn’t one of my favourites.

First of all, I did find it quite fascinating to find out about Alice’s synaesthesia. I have heard of it before and come across it in a few other books. In Alice’s case she can see people’s colours which tells her instantly about their moods. She can read danger, fear, love, joy and any other emotion from looking at people. She is also hugely affected by these moods which can rub off on her and so she is reluctant to have much contact with people. In this sense of being different, Alice has much in common with many of Cecelia Ahern’s other often quirky characters.

I had a lot of sympathy for Alice’s family situation. She was brought up with one older and one younger brother by their mother, Lily, who was bipolar. Life was very difficult for the family and Alice’s experiences were hard to read about. She was effectively a carer to her mother and younger brother, Ollie, which was really too much to expect of a young girl. Life didn’t get much easier as she got older and her mother experienced serious illness while her younger brother went off the rails. Thank goodness for the people who brought light and understanding into her life: her brother Hugh, schoolfriend Gospel, neighbour Naomi and another who I won’t mention for fear of giving away spoilers.

What this book lacked for me was what I think of as Cecelia Ahern’s trademark warm humour and the romance which is usually a major feature of most of her other novels. This book was much darker as it explored a dysfunctional family, neurodiversity and mental illness. The romantic element I wasn’t expecting didn’t come until well on in the book and wasn’t as much of a focus as in Ahern’s previous books. I also thought that having spent much time on Alice’s early life and her adulthood until perhaps her thirties, the last couple of chapters seemed to cover all the rest of her life in a rush.

So this book didn’t really hit the mark for me but of course, you might be different. I have certainly read many glowing reviews of the book so why not read it for yourself and see what you think? Do let me know if you read it. It won’t put me off reading Cecelia Ahern’s books as I have loved so many of them and I will hope that the next one is a winner for me.

About the Author

Cecelia Ahern was born and grew up in Dublin. Her novels have been translated into thirty-five languages and have sold more than twenty-five million copies in over fifty countries. Two of her books have been adapted as films and she has created several TV series.

She and her books have won numerous awards, including the Irish Book Award for Popular Fiction for The Year I Met You.

She lives in Dublin with her family.