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She’s back! For the last few books I’ve read of Cecelia Ahern’s they’ve been good, but not at the level of some of her earlier stuff that I really loved. With this book, it really feels like she’s back at her best, back at magical realism which is I think where her best work lies.

Aged eight, Alice suddenly starts to see colours around people, these colours represent their emotions, a sort of emotional synesthesia, and more than that, if she gets too close to the colours physically, she starts to feel them too. This results in her distancing herself from large groups, wearing dark glasses and gloves as much as possible, and refusing to get too near people – it makes life a bit tricky. On top of this, her mother has bi-polar disorder, and her younger brother absorbs every feeling she puts out, to his detriment as the book goes on. Alice ends up at a boarding school for troubled youngsters, and then we follow her through what happens after that as a young adult. One day she sees a man on a train who has no colours, she can’t read him at all, which she’s never experienced, and it intrigues her. I’ll leave it there!

It’s such an interesting idea to read about, and this is the sort of things I’ve always loved with Cecelia Aherns stories.

A few lines that made me turn page corners down:

• “I sit in the quiet area, reserved for kids who aren’t feeling well, who have a broken arm or leg, or some sort of special needs. My special need is to be away from everyone. Every single person.”
• “You can’t rely on other people’s weaknesses, you’ve got to work on your own strengths.” “But what if seeing other people’s weaknesses is my strength?”
• “Training to do something doesn’t actually mean you can do it.”