While I have a few Jill Mansell books on my virtual Kindle bookshelf to be read, I’ve only ever read one of them. When I saw EVERYONE on twitter raving about this book I moved it to the top of my TBR pile, and I’m immensely glad I did!
Three Amazing Things About You follows the lives of 3 women, Hallie, Tasha and Flo. All of their lives are completely separate bar a few brief chance encounters. This book has all the basics I like in a book covered. Emotional? Yup. Heart-warming? Check. Funny? Most definitely. This book made me smile, laugh and cry. Truly Outstanding!
What surprised me about this book is just how funny it was. I wasn’t expecting many laughs but there were a good number of times where I either smiled to myself insanely or laughed out loud. Lots of these scenes seemed to involve food of some kind. The tomato soup incident sticks in my mind for me. It was absolutely hilarious, but at the same time was honourable and lovable, the essence of who Flo is and what she stands for. The restaurant scene with Flo, Lena and Giles also had me in stitches. Also I have to say I love Jill for referencing one of my favourite scenes from Fawlty Towers, this made me go onto youtube to watch the scene in question, and a load more as well. The list of laugh out loud moments could go on and on!
However, this book isn’t just funny, it has a real emotional side on all 3 stories. At one point Hallie’s ex-boyfriend was so nice, my heart just melted and I couldn’t help but cry a little. We learn in the beginning that Hallie is about to have a lung transplant as she has Cystic Fibrosis, which I’ve never read about in a book before. This was really interesting to read about, as I am a strong believer in organ donation, since my Dad had a kidney transplant about 35 years ago.
**Fun Fact: Because of this, I was classed as a ‘miracle baby’ and had a news article on page 2 of the times when I was born – It’s a shame my 15 minutes of fame was used up so early in life**
Anyway, as I said I was really interested to see Hallies perspective on this, and I was fascinated to learn about the domino effect that happens when people need lung transplants!
The characterisation in this book was fantastic, the 3 leads were so loveable and you really cared for them. The men in this book are al wonderful, though I was a bit suspicious of Zander to start with – I blame his sister for making me too paranoid, who is for the most part just really annoying and you just want to scream at her!
If this book is anything to go by, I am going to have to read more of Jill’s work pretty sharpish! This book is so amazingly fantastic I cannot recommend it enough!
Published by: Headline
Gratefully received from the Publisher for review.
View Book on Goodreads
Order on: Amazon UK | Amazon US | Book Depository