PS, I Love You by Cecelia Ahern

Some people wait their whole lives to find their soul mates. But not Holly and Gerry. Childhood sweethearts, they could finish each other’s sentences. No one could ever imagine them without each other.

When Gerry dies, Holly is devastated. But Gerry has left her a bundle of notes, one for each month of her year, each signed ‘PS, I Love You’.

As the notes are opened, the man who knows Holly better than anyone teaches her that life goes on. With some help from friends and family, Holly laughs, cries and finds that life is for living – but it helps if there’s someone watching over you.

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PS, I Love You is this month’s choice for the book group that I’m now a part of. As with the first two choices, The Seven Husbands of Evelyn Hugo and The Paper Palace, it’s not a novel that I would have chosen to read, but it’s one that I thoroughly enjoyed, although the first five chapters or so did reduce me to tears (I think I’m getting soft in my old age – this never used to be a problem!) something that I tried to minimise while reading on the train.

PS, I Love You is about Holly Kennedy who, at the age of 30, has recently lost her husband and soulmate, Gerry.  To lose a loved one at any age is incredibly difficult, but for someone so young I think it’s particularly cruel when you expect to have years full of wonderful experiences ahead of you.  She understandably feels cheated and is at rock bottom when we meet her, barely surviving in her grief.  She is both comforted by the memories of their all too brief time together while loathing the reminders of what she’s lost.  In Holly, Ahern has created a wonderfully sympathetic character.  She comes across as being utterly normal – she has her flaws and yet these make her engaging and realistic without detracting from her circumstances.  Throughout the novel, we see the conflict in her thoughts and emotions as she begins to live again and feels guilty for doing so, even though she knows it’s what Gerry would want for her.

Holly’s gradual recovery comes about following the discovery of a series of notes left by Gerry – something they’d talked about doing but that she never expected him to carry out, particularly as his illness developed.  Each note – there’s one for each month of the year following his death in February – has a message or instruction for Holly which encourages her to get out and keep living.  Some are silly, such as forcing Holly to face up to her fear of karaoke, while others are more instructive such as asking her to clear out his belongings.  With each note signed “PS, I love you”, these notes give Holly the much-needed motivation to carry on and make her feel a little less alone than she had been. 

What follows is a fantastic novel as Holly finds the strength and courage to keep going and to continue living her life.  There are ups and downs – Holly’s journey is not a miraculous recovery, but a realistic portrayal of someone who’s trying their best in difficult circumstances, sometimes successfully, other times not.  Along the way, we meet her friends and family, many of whom provide some light relief in the novel.  They also serve as a reminder that life does continue, whether we want it to or not, as we see their own trials and tribulations.  It’s difficult for Holly to accept this at times, and while she’s supportive, some of those moments do remind her of what she’s lost.

Well written, surprisingly amusing, and deeply touching, I enjoyed this a lot more than I expected to.  While it is about someone who has been recently and unexpectedly bereaved, the overall message is a positive and hopeful one as Holly realises that life can and does go on.