|
Rachel's Holiday - Book Review |
|
|
|
|
Book Reviews -
Women's Fiction
|
|
Written by DivaTribe Member Lara
|
 Rachel's Holiday, by Marian Keyes.
Marian Keyes explores the self-journey of a 27 year old living in New York with a drug addiction. The character of Rachel quickly becomes a friend as you identify with her struggles as she tries to first, deny the fact she has an addiction and then cope with the reality that at such a young age she would have to completely change her life-style and learn how to love herself without the aid of drugs and alcohol.
One evening Rachel takes a combination of drugs that sends her to the hospital to get her stomach pumped. When she comes to, her family and friends are there to take her back to her home town in Ireland to seek help in a rehabilitation institute for 2 months to reevaluate her life.
Something that brought me much closer to this book was that you didn't know about Rachel's life and her drug habits beforehand. You follow her self-awareness with her. When she is first admitted to rehab she naively believes that she is different from all the other 'addicts' there - that she was misdiagnosed by her friends and family who were just being paranoid. At this point in the book you tend to believe her and little by little as Rachel uncovers her actions as a drug addict you begin to see a very real and very frightening pattern of her habitual drug use.
I identified with so many parts of this book. The denial, the blame that she placed on others for anything that went wrong in her life. After finishing this book I felt as though I'd been through a rigorous therapy session. Each character in this novel has a different story but the underlining theme is that they each have their problems to work through whether they are an addict or not.
Marian Keyes writes with such emotion and detail that there wasn't a single part of the book you couldn't immerse yourself in. You follow the emotions of Rachel and the other characters with the same roller-coaster ride as they do.
This is a quick read - a guaranteed page turner that is entertaining, humorous and heartfelt. If you ever get stuck in the airport for several hours this is the book to occupy your time.
The character of Rachel almost destroys her life and teaches all of us how to rebuild with the self-awareness and self-confidence we need - complete with a fairy tale ending to prove to everyone that hope is never lost.
This review is available for reprint.
|
