Book- The Year I Met You
Author- Cecelia Ahern
Pages-416
Jasmine, when she was five years old she learned that she
was going to die. Not now. But eventually someday. She learned of her impending death from her older cousin
Kevin on the day of her granddad’s funeral.
She was thirty- three when she was terminated from
employment, six weeks before Christmas—which is a highly undignified time to
let somebody go off employment. She began working as an accountant from the ride
age of twenty four and then she shifted to a company which provided financial
advice and guidance to individuals wishing to start their own business.
Thereafter, she started a startup of building business and sold them once the
business was successful.
The job she was being fired, she was a co-founder with
Larry. She was thirty-three years old and on a gardening leave for a year,
which doesn’t allow her to catch up on another job till her leave was over.
This was from the contract of the business when they started it together.
Matt Marshal, DJ on Ireland’s biggest radio station was one
of the neighbour of Jasmine, She stalked him every day when he returned back
from his work. His show airs from eleven p.m. to one a.m. and receives the
highest numbers of listeners of any show on Irish radio. He has been the helm
of late night talk shows for the past ten years. Jasmine didn’t know he lived
on this street when she moved in, but when she heard the voice travel to her
across the road one day, she knew it was him.
Matt Marshal was fired after the New Year’s Eve show that he
and his team felt would be hilarious to ring in the new year with the sound of
a woman’s orgasm along with a quiz to guess the sound of a fake orgasm from a
real orgasm. (Although it was a fake sound make by a woman, it costs his job).
One day, when a call came in her apartment, the number of
which is only with Heather (her elder sister who is a year older than her and
suffering from Down’s syndrome) and her Dad. She picked up the phone thinking
it would be either of them, only to realize it was someone she never actually
knew.
Meanwhile Kevin visits her only to make her more
comfortable. Kevin was her cousin, but he was adopted and he fell in love with
Jasmine right from their childhood and even kissed her in their backyard garden.
Jasmine thought Kevin would forget those memories and start with a fresh new
start, but, he repeated those words and convinced her that he love her as much
as he loved her when they were young. But
she rejects and moves forward.
With the gardening leave going on, she found her hobby in gardening
(quite interesting isn’t it? Because gardening leave doesn’t mean you have to
start gardening in that leave. Seems Jasmine took it seriously!’ And started to make her garden more
presentable when one day, Monday visits her (the one who called her in her
apartment). He is from a renowned company which wants to build a new startup
for the welfare of people. He described himself as a headhunter for people with
capabilities to give them the position they deserve.
Jasmine felt proud of herself because she felt important and
somewhat started falling for Monday.
Meanwhile, Matt Marshal’s ‘Paradise City’, the song which can be heard from the other side of
the road made jasmine’s heart flutter. Whenever she heard the song, she went
near the windowpane to stalk Matt.
One day while she was drunk, she writes a letter to Matt,
which she doesn’t recall properly for which she sneaks into his house to get
the letter which has been exchanged with the letter his wife gave him.
''Dear Matt,
We all have stand-out
moments in our lives, periods which influenced small or profound changes in us.
I can think of four life-changing moments for me: the year I was born, the year I learned I would
die, the year my mother dies and now I have a new one- the year I met you.
‘I have heard your
voice everyday, listened to the unsavory words that formulate your tasteless
thoughts and make a judgment on you. I did not like you. But you are proof that
you can think you know someone yet never really know them at all. What I have
learnt is that you are more, more than what you pretend to be, more than what
you believe yourself to be you are less an awful lot of time, but being less
has driven people away. I think sometimes you like doing that and I understand
that too. Hurt people hurt people.
But when you think no
one is listening or when you think no one is paying you any attention, you are
so much more. It’s a pity that you don’t believe that yourself, or show the
people you love.
The year I met you, I met
myself. You should do the same, because I think you will find a good man’’
I am really awestruck after reading the piece of letter
Jasmine wrote for Matt. Just imagine a person drunk and writing such a long
letter. Although the story ended with
Heather inviting everyone Jasmine knows what she calls it a support group to support
Jasmine in whatever she is doing. The story leaves a great impact you know? Like
for instance it teaches take a break from your life and know what your hobbies
are. What your likes and dislikes are. Take time out for yourself so that you
won’t have any grudges for the life afterwards.
The story is predictable if you go on with the flow. But, at
a point of time I thought Jasmine would share a bond with Matt (who was already
married) but the protagonist fell in love with Monday instead.
The story is great, it has a good start and a good ending
and teaches that sometimes it’s okay to just sit idle and think nothing.
Overall rating- 3.5/5
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