After finishing P.S I Love You I started straight on with Postscript which was kindly gifted to me from instagram. It picks up Holly's story 7 years on from the end of P.S I Love You, she has a new boyfriend; Gabriel, and is planning to move in with him. Sharon her friend has hundreds of kids despite never previously wanting to have any, and Denise is still happily married to the To the DJ from Holly's infamous karaoke performance, but desperate to have a child and not succeeding. Ciara is back from Australia with her now husband and has opened a vintage shop where Holly works.
As well as owning the shop, Ciara also has a podcast, she convinces Holly against Gabriel's advice to talk about the letters she received after Gerry; her husband, died of cancer. Holly receives lots of nice feedback after telling her story, but what she doesn't anticipate is that there would be a group of people with terminal/life-shortening illnesses who would form a group called the P.S I Love You Club and want Holly's help to write letters for their loved ones like Gerry did for her.
The group is made up of a mixture of individuals with all varying illnesses and life expectancy and different age and background. Holly needs to decide whether to risk her own relationships and wellbeing in order to help these individuals, and also reflect on whether she really wanted the letter that Gerry left behind or whether they stinted her ability to move on after his death.
I like that when you read a sequel the characters are already developed and you can pretty much pick up where you left off. I did notice some writing style differences moving straight from P.S I Love You to Postscript which I'm attributing to the 16 years difference in Ahern writing them. It was really nice to pick back up with the characters, I also liked that it wasn't cliché that Holly was still with the guy she went on a date with at the end of the first book and things had changed quite a lot. I do wish there was more of a love story as I felt a little robbed of that in the first book due to the focus on grief, and I missed the fun friendship of the girls. However, I also loved reading of Holly's new friendship with Ginika. I didn't really find the book emotional despite seeing lots of reviews about how they were crying their eyes out, maybe I just didn't connect quite as much? There was one scene near the end where I was welling up but it didn't quite play out long enough to draw the sobs out of me.
All in all a good book that I would give 4/5 to.
As well as owning the shop, Ciara also has a podcast, she convinces Holly against Gabriel's advice to talk about the letters she received after Gerry; her husband, died of cancer. Holly receives lots of nice feedback after telling her story, but what she doesn't anticipate is that there would be a group of people with terminal/life-shortening illnesses who would form a group called the P.S I Love You Club and want Holly's help to write letters for their loved ones like Gerry did for her.
The group is made up of a mixture of individuals with all varying illnesses and life expectancy and different age and background. Holly needs to decide whether to risk her own relationships and wellbeing in order to help these individuals, and also reflect on whether she really wanted the letter that Gerry left behind or whether they stinted her ability to move on after his death.
I like that when you read a sequel the characters are already developed and you can pretty much pick up where you left off. I did notice some writing style differences moving straight from P.S I Love You to Postscript which I'm attributing to the 16 years difference in Ahern writing them. It was really nice to pick back up with the characters, I also liked that it wasn't cliché that Holly was still with the guy she went on a date with at the end of the first book and things had changed quite a lot. I do wish there was more of a love story as I felt a little robbed of that in the first book due to the focus on grief, and I missed the fun friendship of the girls. However, I also loved reading of Holly's new friendship with Ginika. I didn't really find the book emotional despite seeing lots of reviews about how they were crying their eyes out, maybe I just didn't connect quite as much? There was one scene near the end where I was welling up but it didn't quite play out long enough to draw the sobs out of me.
All in all a good book that I would give 4/5 to.