Thanks, once again, to Lucy from Midas PR (You can follow them on twitter @midaspr) for getting me involved in the blog tour for Putting Alice Back Together. Once again another fantastic debut novel....!
** What it’s about **
There’s only so much sex, valium and red wine you can take to paper over the cracks…
Alice is the friend you wish you had. The girl who makes a party more fun, drinks wine out of a mug and makes you laugh while you’re crying over an ex. Alice is totally happy, everything is amazing and there is nothing at all to worry about…except, well:
Her job was really great – 10 years ago.
She is in love with her best friend, but he’s gay.
Her credit card bills are under her bed unopened…
But maybe the biggest problem for Alice is that she has a secret.
A secret so big she can’t tell anyone. How do you keep a secret like that when everything is starting to fall apart?
And once it’s out there, how do you ever begin to put yourself back together again?
** What I thought **
Putting Alice Back Together is more a book about Alice falling apart. It’s a harrowing story of ‘Little Alice’ intermingled with present day Alice; the narrative flicks back and forth as it allows the reader to discover piece by piece how Alice has come to be the woman she is today. And let’s face it, Alice is a mess…
Alice has to hit rock bottom in order to start putting herself back together. It isn’t just the secret from her childhood causing her to plummet; she’s also in love with her gay best friend, in a huge amount of debt and stuck in a job which is far from her ideal.
I very much enjoyed this book, discovering Alice as a person (flaws and all). We’ve all made mistakes (perhaps not all of us on the scale of Alice), but this book is really about self-discovery, coming to terms with the person you are and learning to love yourself again, before allowing someone else to do the same.
This book is packed with friendship (some good friends and some not so good friends) and honest family relationships. Alice was warm and witty, despite everything, and I love how she’d type out emails being frank but hit delete and retype an edited version before sending. We’ve definitely all done that….!
There is also just the right amount of romance in this book; not too much that it becomes romantic chick lit but just enough to be real and warming against the heart-breaking background.
All in all, I very much enjoyed Carol Marinelli’s Putting Alice back together and certainly will be keeping an eye out for her future books!
About Carol Marinelli
Carol Marinelli grew up in London, but after training to be a nurse, went on holiday to Melbourne and never left. She has lived in Australia for ten years and has travelled extensively around the country. She has embraced Australian life to the full and now lives with her family in Melbourne. Carol is a Nurse by day and an author by night, when she’s not working or writing, Carol loves to travel, with her favourite destination being New York. She hates airports and goodbyes, and is happiest at her computer lost in her imagination and making up stories.
You can read more about Carol at her website.
Loving your blog. I hope you like mine! :)
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