If You Could See Me Now

If You Could See Me Now by Cecelia Ahern

Elizabeth Egan was forced to grow up too soon at a very young age. With a flighty mother and a stern, distant father, it was up to Elizabeth to help shape a better, brighter future for her younger sister, Saoirse. Fast-forward in time and Elizabeth is once again straining to hold the pieces of her splintering family together. She is the adopted guardian of her sister's six-year-old son, Luke, as her sister has followed in their mother's footsteps and takes off for days and weeks at a time without a second thought for anyone around her. Fighting hard to maintain her interior design business while taking care of Luke and worrying about her sister's whereabouts, Elizabeth is at her rope's end. That's when Ivan starts to visit. In a short time, Elizabeth begins to see, with Ivan's help, that it's okay to let go and have fun, and part of letting go meant revisiting her past and answering long-sought after questions about her mother.

This book was really neat. Cecelia Ahern likes to think outside the box, it seems, as her plots often explore the realms of fantasy and make-believe. In doing that, she is able to take what could have been a mundane "my-mother-ran-off-my-sister-is-a-drunk-my-father-doesn't-talk-to-me" whiney story and turn it into this magical tale where the impossible becomes possible and things you belived in when you were little can seem real again. It was a fairly easy read, and I enjoyed the original idea behind including a character like Ivan in the novel. It makes for something different to read about, and that's always a welcome thing. I would definitely recommend this novel to someone who doesn't have a lot of time to read (since you can get through it fairly quickly) and I also think it is a good choice for young adult readers looking to break free from the "teen" section in bookstores.