Updates...

Last Wednesday I went to my regular check up.  Knowing that it would usually involved a couple of hours waiting, I stopped by local grocery store that also carries some novel.  I spotted this book:

I had seen the book last year, but always put up buying it because well, I was usually looking for a light reading and at 500+ pages, it just seemed too much.  But this time, it's different. I was looking for a book that would occupy me for couple of hours waiting and this one seemed just right; I figured it would last long enough until the end of the week at least, instead of buying the harlequin-esh book that I could finish immediately.  So I picked it up without expecting anything.

And I love it.  It was not quite what I had expected; as a matter of fact, by the middle of the book, I no longer know what to expect, and that is a nice change.  This is not a typical book in which the readers are this omnipresence being who was conditioned to be amused by the problems the heroine faces and knew exactly what they should have done or said and with whom they would end up before reading half the book.  

These characters, and three of them are very different, have background stories that would make you feel for them, although not necessarily agree with them.  On the surface, they are normal woman with everyday problems.  They do not suddenly experience enlightenment, there is not one major traumatic event that would make them repent their sins and changed their way.  
They do change, but I believe it's because of the experience and situation that shaped them that way, it happened so subtly and over time, and there's also no easy and miraculous fix for them, and all of these made these characters ever so real and believable.

Reading romance books, you usually would know from the start who's the heroine and who's the villain.  But these three women are just regular women who had made bad choices in their life and what's good about it, I don't think any of them as villains: they are just regular people making difficult decisions in a shitty situations that are not always right and must deal with the consequences.

One woman gets to live the happily ever after version, another one was given a glint of hope and sign that perhaps all is not lost, while the last one...I hope it means that she truly, sincerely learned the lessons and wished she will be given a chance in the next book...

In the end, I don't hate any of them, and root for all of them to be stronger, and hope they will eventually lead a happy and satisfying life.  And that alone should say a lot about the book.

Happy with the first Marian Keyes' work I ever read, I picked up the second one last Sunday: 

I'm more than half way through it, and noticed two similar things with the first book: I'm rooting for all three characters (two of them hates each other), and have no idea how the story will turn. 

It can only mean one thing: I will get the third book by the author. For sure.