One Hundred Names by Cecelia Ahern

One Hundred Names by Cecelia Ahern

Published: originally published Jan 1, 2012

Publisher: Harper Collins

Pages: 469

Received: for honest review via TLC Book Tours

The new novel from the bestselling author. Journalist Kitty Logan's career is being destroyed by scandal - and now she faces losing the woman who guided and taught her everything she knew. At her terminally ill friend's bedside, Kitty asks - what is the one story she always wanted to write? The answer lies in a file buried in Constance's office: a list of one hundred names. There is no synopsis, nothing to explain what the story is or who these people are. The list is simply a mystery. But before Kitty can talk to her friend, it is too late. With everything to prove, Kitty is assigned the most important task of her life: to write the story her mentor never had the opportunity to. Kitty not only has to track down and meet the people on the list, but find out what connects them. And, in the process of hearing ordinary people's stories, she starts to understand her own.

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This is my first novel by Cecelia Ahern and I will definitely be checking out her backlist of books. 

Kitty Logan's life changes dramatically over the course of this book. She is an over eager writer who went a little overboard with her enthusiasm for her new position on a television show. She ruined not only her career, but the life of an innocent person in the process. Her life is upside down and she is scrambling to get back on track and move past all of the horrible feelings and things that keep appearing.

Kitty begins working on the greatest story she's never written. It's a story that her mentor had been hoping to work on, but passed the idea along to Kitty on her deathbed. I found it completely exciting following Kitty decipher and write this story. What would you do with a list of One Hundred Names and no clues as to how they are all linked together?

"All I had to go on with Constance's story was one hundred names. That was it. No synopsis, no explanation, no outline, absolutely nothing but a random list of people that nobody had ever heard of."

As Kitty stumbles her way through her new messy life and meeting with people from the list, she slowly uncovers the meaning behind the list and what her mentor was trying to tell her and the world. I adored watching Kitty make new friendships with the people from the list and how she grows as a character from her interactions with each one. 

How do an elderly woman in a nursing home, an ex-convict, a middle aged woman with something to hide, a young woman who gets proposed to weekly, a man who is trying to prove his worth to the world, a woman who picks out perfect gifts and a woman who helps people find happiness in their hour of need fit together?

It's an emotional ride. The last chapter was the perfect way to sum up how Kitty figured out the link and how each person has a story worth telling.

"It's all so perfectly clear to me now," Kitty explained. "The last time I met with Constance she lectured me, as she always did, on the art of writing a good story. She told me that to seek the truth is not necessarily to go on a mission all guns blazing in order to reveal a lie, neither is it to be particularly ground-breaking - it is simply to get to the the heart of what is real."

About the Author:

Cecelia Ahern was born on September 30, 1981 in Dublin, Ireland. She is the daughter of the former Irish Taoiseach Bertie Ahern. On 14th December 2009 it was announced that Cecelia had given birth to her first child with partner David Keoghan, a girl named Robin. She was secretly married on 11 June 2010 in County Kildare, Ireland. Her older sister, Georgina Ahern is married to Nicky Byrne of Irish pop group Westlife. Cecelia was a member of the Irish pop group Shimma who finished third in the Irish national for the Eurovision Song Contest in 2000. She attended Griffith College Dublin and obtained a degree in Journalism and Media Communications.

Cecelia Ahern wrote her first novel, PS. I Love You when she was twenty-one. It was published in 2004, the number 1 bestseller in Ireland for 19 weeks and sold in over forty countries. The book was adapted as a motion picture directed by Richard LaGravenese and starring Hilary Swank and Gerard Butler and released in 2007 in the United States.

Her second book, Where Rainbows End (US title: Love, Rosie or Rosie Dunne) won the German CORINE Award in 2005. She contributed with short stories to charity books and is also the co-creator and producer of the ABC comedy Samantha Who?.

Her other works include If You Could See Me Now (US title: A Silver Lining), A Place Called Here (US title: There's No Place Like Here) Thanks for the Memories (US title: Desire Lines) The Gift The Book of Tomorrow.  

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