Lesser characters include Mrs Wu, who is an inconsistent (especially in her speech) and uncomfortable caricature of a Chinese matriarch and restaurateur, an old lesbian couple whose peripheral presence in the story makes little sense, and a young gay couple. The second person to share their inner selves in the notebook’s pages is Monica, 37, owner of a failing cafe and a former corporate lawyer who desperately wants to have a baby. I think most of us at the core are decent human beings who enjoy helping others and I loved seeing that play out in this book with all of these strangers coming together and looking out for one another.

Clare Pooley creates the most interesting and wonderful characters who feel like firm friends by the end. I understand the desire for escapism, but for me, it has to be either more believable than this, or be explicitly fantasy or magical realism. The notebook contains a story – an authentic story – of one person who admits he’s very lonely – Julian, an artist who used to be quite famous.We collaborate with authors across all adult fiction genres, and also handle children’s books, young adult and cross-over fiction. Now when I said my honest opinion about author's work, I hope her father (as she warned us in her acknowledgment) won't leave a nasty comment. I actually like the occasional dose of Sophie Kinsella, and I liked parts of The Authenticity Project, but overall it was just a bit too predictable and the characters were a bit to stereotypical for my tastes.

I guess, considering the addiction storylines (all the characters are addicted to something, alcohol, social media, cleaning etc), Pooley had the best intentions when she wrote this book. The 103 third parties who use cookies on this service do so for their purposes of displaying and measuring personalized ads, generating audience insights, and developing and improving products. Julian, a lonely 79-year old man started the project by writing his truths in the notebook and passing it on by leaving it a cafe.

Pooley also cleverly gives a character’s point of view about another character, it highlights how people view others, make assumptions about people’s lives and how we portray ourselves to the world, but how we actually feel underneath it all. Social media proves that many people like to share their lives and inner thoughts, authentic or not. Monica headed toward the left, looking out for an old man clutching a bottle of Bailey's Irish Cream. Treat yourself to the warm, poignant and uplifting Radio 2 Book Club pick, loved by hundreds of thousands of readers. Yanagihara ( The People in the Trees, 2013) takes the still-bold leap of writing about characters who don’t share her background; in addition to being male, JB is African-American, Malcolm has a black father and white mother, Willem is white, and “Jude’s race was undetermined”—deserted at birth, he was raised in a monastery and had an unspeakably traumatic childhood that’s revealed slowly over the course of the book.

follow-up to her series of blockbuster bestsellers will thrill her fans with its combination of Greek tragedy, Romeo and Juliet–like coming-of-age story, and domestic potboiler.In this, their plights/plots were bland and boring and I’m afraid I had trouble liking some of the characters, let alone loving them.

The changing viewpoints work well because everyone is trying to fix things for others, creating dramatic tension, and a community of sorts emerges. This is a glossy tale where difficulties and addictions appear and are overcome, where lies are told and then forgiven, where love is sought and found, and where truths, once spoken, can set you free. Inside Julian describes his loneliness since his wife died, and how he lost friends and relationships, now going days without talking to anyone.She is also touched by Julian story and decides she’s going to bring a little joy and purpose into his life. I read People on platform 5 which I quite enjoyed too and this is a similar style book (naturally as same author!