★★★★
I am extremely happy and excited to be part of the blog tour for Eleven Lines to Somewhere by Alyson Rudd. Thank you to the team at HQ – for sending me a copy in exchange for an honest review. Check out the other book bloggers that are part of the tour as well:
Synopsis:
Everyone is searching for love. Sometimes we just take our own route to find it.
Ryan sees a young woman on the tube on his way to work, and he can’t stop looking at her. Attracted and intrigued, he’s set to find out more about this mysterious passenger that shares the tube with him.
Sylvie keeps travelling the underground, unable to leave for reasons unknown to Ryan. He hasn’t been dating for ten years, when he was at university and the love of his life died.
But for some reason, he feels he needs to help Sylvie. In a world of missed opportunities and what-ifs, a connection has been made.
My Thoughts:
This is the second book I have read by Alyson Rudd, with the first one being The First Time Lauren Pailing Died. That book intrigued me, and when I saw Eleven Lines to Somewhere being published – I had to know and compare them.
At the beginning, I was intrigued, knowing what the synopsis is. We meet Ryan and Sylvie (separately), and we get a small glimpse into their lives. In the beginning, Ryan’s story with his family and friends is more talked about. I liked getting to know Ryan, very slowly throughout the first half of the book. He is a very intriguing character himself, going through a personal time, as well as making very controversial decisions to get to know Sylvie better.
I liked Sylvie’s story and her connection to the underground. It was very intriguing to me to read and understand how some moments in life can let us become something that we can’t help but be. That a certain experience can cause such a need for Sylvie to action. I loved the psychological aspect of her characterisation, and how the trauma was handled.
Once Ryan and Sylvie got to know each other, the pace of the book changed, I felt. The pace was very slow, but the scenes moved very quickly in time.
Even though I loved Ryan and Sylvie as separate characters, I couldn’t love them as a couple.
I felt that there was chemistry and romance missing, and somehow their connection to each other was based on the need to help the other one with their own trauma. For me, that being a single reason to love someone makes me think a person is in such a relationship to only feel better about themselves. Look – I helped someone, I am a better person now. But that’s just my humble opinion.
There were a lot of side characters that had their own storylines – which I really enjoyed. A lot of drama and twists happened with them, which was quite enjoyable to read. Some characters in the end were thrown into the story abruptly, almost as if for convenience to the story line. But it worked well in the end.
I really enjoyed this story. Still a 4 star, but I enjoyed it more than The First Time Lauren Pailing Died. If you love contemporary books with a lot of characters, this will be a very good pick for you!
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