Tuesday, July 28, 2009

Book Review: Sundays at Tiffany's by James Patterson and Gabrielle Charbonnet


I love easy reads. I love them because while it is an easy read, I still get the chance to lose myself in the characters and the story line and just get away from everything for a while.

This book was no exception. We start off with Jane and Michael. Jane is 8, in a few days she will be 9. She's sitting in the Astor Court of the St. Regis hotel in New York. Eating an ice cream and also ordering another ice cream for her "friend" Michael. Michael is imaginary. They hold conversations, he helps her fight loneliness. Jane's mother is highly involved in Broadway productions and therefore rarely has time to dote on her daughter. Michael, naturally, fills that void. Her father also doesn't seem to have a lot of time for his daughter and has a girlfriend (Jane's parents are divorced) that he is preoccupied with.

On every Sunday, Jane and her mother go to the Astor Court and then afterwards go to Tiffany's. We get an idea for the relationship between mother and daughter and wonder how on earth a child could grow up without major self esteem issues stemming from her mother's harping.

On Jane's 9th birthday, Michael tells her his time as her friend is up and that she will be fine. He tells her that after he leaves she won't remember him and that she'll grow up to be a great woman. She is heartbroken and swears to him she'll never forget.

Fast forward 20 years. Sure enough, Jane hasn't forgotten. She works for her mother and has written a musical about a little girl and her imaginary friend that is hugely popular. Michael is still an imaginary friend to many different children and is "in between" jobs when one day he notices a girl who looks alarmingly familiar. He begins to follow her when he realizes it's Jane.

Basically, you should be able to figure out the rest just from that. It's a pretty predictable book with a few curve balls thrown in. For instance, why can Jane see Michael again? What is he supposed to help her through? Is she dieing? Does she have some kind of brain tumor? No, he's really there and other people see him, too.

The characters are well written and the description is just enough that I don't feel like it's too verbose.

I would definitely recommend this book if you like love stories and books about "fate". I enjoyed it and thought it was a sweet book.

1 comment:

Carie said...

I have read this one and LOVE LOVE LOVE it.