Any Body Out There

How do people choose books? Is it the cover, the blurb, recommendation or a literary review? I have in the past used one or more of those reasons but I chose Marian Keyes ‘Anybody Out There’ because when on holiday I saw so many women reading one of hers and what struck me was that they were thick ! The books I mean not the women!
This book isn’t my usual choice of books but I really did enjoy it once I got into the way it was written.
It starts with Anna in Ireland, far away from her wonderful life in New York, her perfect husband seems to have disappeared and she has been horribly scarred. As to why she is scarred or how she has ended up back in her home in Ireland is a mystery which is revealed slowly and intriguingly throughout the book. As Anna recuperates in Ireland we are introduced to the Walsh family,. Readers get to know Helen, the youngest of the Walsh Clan, she is a private detective and spends most of her time hiding in bushes trying to catch cheating spouses with her long range camera lens. Also Mother Walsh, whose concern for all her daughters is sometimes only fuelled by what other people may think of them. A typical Irish mother!
When Anna returns to New York, in search of her missing husband and against her mother's wishes, we meet a whole host of other characters, including Nicholas, a conspiracy theory nut, who believes everything from Alien Abductions to the fact that Elvis is alive and working in Taco Bell! All of these characters bring the book alive and help you to laugh through what is at times a heart breaking story.
`Anybody Out There?' is a good read, with elements of humour, tragedy and indeed mystery. It has a few short comings, when the great mystery is revealed to the reader it seems to lose pace and any story about young single women set in New York might be compared to Sex and the City. And when doing a straight comparison `Anybody Out there?' falls a little bit short. As a light summer read it is perfect, definitely a must if you need to read something while sitting beside the pool, sipping a glass of wine in Spain.
I would advise anyone who likes this sort of fiction to certainly read it. I would not say it has converted me to become a fan of `Chick Lit' fiction but it certainly has made me consider, after I have read few more juicy murder stories, to try another one of these types of stories.

Chris