Three Amazing Things About You*: Jill Mansel

Title: Three Amazing Things About You
Author: Jill Mansell
Publisher: Headline
Release date: January 15th 2015
Pre-order here: Waterstones Amazon








About two or three years ago I stumbled across the shelf in my local Waterstones that played home to Jill Mansells books. It's safe to say I fell in love and I haven't looked back since. Jill has provided me with many a favourite character so you can only imagine my excitement when I found out that another book was on the horizon!

The book follows the lives of three women, Hallie, Tasha and Flo. Hallie suffers from Cystic Fibrosis, she is the brains behind an advice blog, has a slightly inappropriate crush on her doctor and dreams of the day her transplant coordinate will give her a call and hand her the new life she dreams of. Then we have Tasha who one christmas eve finds herself rooting through a public bin in desperate search for the credit card she had lost. But this public mortification turns out to be the door opening to the next chapter of her life. Finally we have Flo who works in a care home, having just inherited the position of care owner to a cat, she is the centre of a family dispute and about to fall in love with a man she would never even have considered.

To start with the stories felt very separate and I found it hard to understand why they all needed to be told. But as the book progressed, Jill kept on dropping hints, slowly weaving the story together until BAM, there it was, out of nowhere it suddenly made sense and as the book progressed I began to see the necessity for all three of the stories. The book kept me guessing and while I am usually very good at guessing endings, this offering evaded me right until the end. I can't imagine the amount of time that must have gone into making it work so seamlessly, how Jill managed to organise so many characters all on their own seperate story line is beyond me (tell us our secrets Jill!). As in the ancient Greek world where the rhapsode would weave their story, I can imagine Jill picking up her Hallie, Flo and Tasha strands and carefully working them through a loom- they don't seem like much as a bundle of yarns, but as a piece of cloth, they are magnificent.

Because of the nature of the book I felt as though some of the characters lacked the development they deserved, in particular the characters of Tasha and Rory. Their relationship, whilst idealistic, was too unbelievable, I love a good romance as much as the next person but this one didn't quite hit it off with me. Of course this is only a tiny detail and the other brilliant characters sure made up for it. My favourite character was actually one of the minor ones, Joe (Rorys friend), he had the sense of humour that I felt some of the others lacked and although he was only a minor character I definitely valued his role in the story. Hallie comes in at a very close second for favourite, I thought that Jill dealt with Cystic Fibrosis in a very sensitive manner and I really appreciated the amount of time and research that she evidently put into it.

I have read all of Jill's books which I can tell you is no mean feat with 26 books to her name, but having finished Three Amazing Things About You I would go as far as to say it is my favourite. Excuse me whilst I go and (not so) patiently wait for her next offering.

So the question you are all asking, would I recommend it? Of course I would, Three Amazing Things About You is another brilliant offering from Jill Mansell and picking this up will be time well spent!

I would love to hear your thoughts on this book or any of Jill Mansells other books!

Eilidh


*I was given the opportunity to read and honestly review this by Netgalley and all opinions are my own.