Author: Carrie Hope Fletcher
Summary: Evie Snow is eighty-two when she quietly passes away in her sleep, surrounded by her children and grandchildren. It's the way most people wish to leave the world but when Evie reaches the door of her own private heaven, she finds that she's become her twenty-seven-year-old self and the door won't open.
Evie's soul must be light enough to pass through so she needs to get rid of whatever is making her soul heavy. For Evie, this means unburdening herself of the three secrets that have weighed her down for over fifty years, so she must find a way to reveal them before it's too late. As Evie begins the journey of a lifetime, she learns more about life and love than she ever thought possible, and somehow , some way, she may also find her way back to her long lost love...
Review
Let's just start by saying this book emotionally destroyed me, Carrie Hope Fletcher broke my heart into a million pieces and then gradually pieced it back together again. What an incredible debut novel! I couldn't think of a more deserving person to have written this book ( which has definitely found its way to be one of my favourite books of 2016 and perhaps of all time!). If I had to describe this book in three words: magical, breathtaking and devastating.
Carrie has such a talent for creating unique, wholesome and believable characters- as well as creating brilliant and inventive names for them. I adored Evie Snow, she was a realistic and unexaggerated female protagonist. Evie had her flaws as we all do but at her core she was kind, humble and most importantly full of hope. She always tried to be the best version of herself and that is something I deeply respect in a person and it makes Evie Snow a brilliant role model for all of us. Of course the two love interests, Jim and Vincent, were also great characters. Vincent was so adorable I loved the first date with him and Evie eating burgers and chips in the tube station it was so simple and sweet. I have to be honest I loved Jim a little bit more than Vincent purely because of the awful things that happened to him throughout the book but he still looked out for Evie and was completely selfless in loving her. Jim was truly a commendable character and I have so much respect for his actions and his character.
The opening chapter was excellent I loved the setting of the afterlife's waiting room. The concept of 'what lies beyond' was so different to anything I've read or seen before and it was so fantastical from the very onset of the book. Lieffe's character was really nice to read, he acted as a fairy godmother for Evie and was sort of a homage to Carrie's love of fairytales ( of which I am also a huge fan ). I liked how the book focused on Evie's life and the decisions she made that lead her right up to the end instead of focussing on her time in the afterlife.
The actual narrative was very different to how I first envisioned. Saying that I did not dislike the difference, the book was surprisingly emotional and heartbreaking. The book was indeed a 'love story like no other' merged with a heartbreaking tale of control and the loss of it as well as magical realism wove in between. Evie was a woman with no options and born into a wealthy family concerned with status and maintaining traditions. Evie, a dreamer and individual, didn't fit in where she was supposed to belong this perhaps was most devastating factor. Despite her efforts to live the life she wanted her overbearing mother made sure that she married Jim, a man hopelessly in love with her and her best friend, and upheld old traditions. This forced and arranged marriage broke my heart, Vincent was left without the love of his life, Jim married the girl he had always adored but in doing so knew her hopes and dreams would be destroyed and Evie had to go through with it knowing she failed in her endeavor to be her own person and lost her soulmate.
The three secrets were so creative and surprising. I went into the book imagining some dark and gritty secrets but I couldn't had been more wrong. They were all magical and utterly genius. I love magical realism and all of the secrets just radiated themes of fairytales. The tree was probably my favourite secret and was very reminiscent of 'Once Upon a Time' which is one of my favourite TV shows.
The ending of the book was very bittersweet for me. Although Evie and Vincent were reunited in death it ultimately meant that they spent a whole lifetime without each other. I wish things had worked out better for them whilst they were still alive.