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A Place Called Here (book review)


A Place Called Here by Cecelia Ahern
(May contain spoilers)

Summary:
Sandy Shortt is a 34 years old woman who started her own finding missing people organization in Ireland, after spending her whole life wondering where all her missing socks went and more especially where did her neighbor Jenny-May Butler disappeared to when she was 6 years old. Jack Ruttle asked Sandy if she could find his missing brother Donal who went missing about a year ago and after they agreed on a place and time to meet something weird happened: Sandy went missing. She got to the place a little early and she decided to take a look around the woods, she walked and walked till she saw a group of 50 years old people sitting together, by the time Sandy got to know their names she found out that they were those 5 students who went missing in a school camping trip back in the 70s, Sandy didn't just walked into the woods, she walked into a place called "Here" where all the missing people and all the missing things go to. 
As the missing people agent she is, she began to ask about the people she has been looking for and never found and indeed she had found everyone except for Jack's brother Donal. 
Jack however found it odd that Sandy left her coffee and her car running so he suspected that is something had happened to her, he contacted the police and contacted her previous clients to ask about her, she wasn't planning to leave the world, she had plans with different people and plans with different clubs, so it was strange for her to just disappear like that. 
Jack began to look for her in the real world and Sandy began to look for Donal and her neighbor Jenny-May Bulter while interacting with the people in Here to ask them how they got here and no one gave her a convincing answer. After a spending a while in Here, sandy finally met Jenny-May Butler and took a photo with her and at the same time, she magically re appeared in the real world as the people of Here where saying the lines "There is no place like home, There is no place like home." from the play The Wizard Of Oz. 
After she returned to the real world, Sandy met Jack and told him that she didn't find his brother Donal, turns out that he was involved in some gang that got him murdered. Sandy also went to Jenny-May's mother and gave her the picture of herself and Jenny-May telling her that her daughter is in a safe place. 

My review: 
I'm not a fan of an open ending book, but I sure loved the ending of A Place Called Here, it was satisfying and sad at the same time. I loved how the author made jump cuts in the story and succeeded to connect them all together and produced this well written novel. 
I believe that it was my first time reading a fiction book with this style: not your usual teenage girl living in a society that she tries to stand out in it. No, A Place Called Here is different, its not only about Sandy Shortt and how she turned her unhealthy obsession into a real job that everyone goes to her to ask for help. It is about not losing faith in yourself when all the doors in the world decided to close on you and its about all the things in this world has an explanation even though scientist did not cover or explain every single thing that has been going on in this universe, everything happens for a reason and there is no such a thing as magic. 
This book made me wonder if there is a really a place in some other dimension that everyone and everything that goes missing goes to that place and it made me obsess over these stories of missing people over the years, and that is what I love about these kinds of books, to make me curious about certain things and make me read more about it. 
I loved how the author talked about her country, Ireland and made all the characters Irish, it is one way to show the readers your identity and to show them that you're proud of your country and by that she makes the Irish readers proud to have such an excellent author.
Over all, the book is beautiful and entertaining and I enjoyed every chapter of it. I highly recommend it if you are into mystery and shady books.

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