Unlike Sandy, I have no problem with missing items: pen, socks, books, thoughts, and memories; I lose them all the time. Sometimes, during the day, I remember that I threw away that sock or that I gave that pen to somebody.
The worst is when I'm in bed, trying to fall asleep, and I remember something I totally forgot, good or bad doesn't matter. I’ll spend the next days - weeks if it goes badly -, trying not to think of that memories, only with the result of imprinting it for much longer. All of this stops when I remember something new, and most of the time I lose hours of sleep.
But nothing can compare to dealing with a missing person. And God knows how much I hate this terminology.
In Italy, we have a tv show that talks about missing people and people no one is looking for because they’re not important enough or there isn’t enough proof for a case. It's an extremely important program because, even if they don't find the person you're looking for, they never stop looking for the truth. But I hate it.
It makes me feel like a bad person, but that program gives me the weekly amount of anxiety in two hours and a half on a normal Wednesday evening.
And, honestly, how a person can be missing? It's the 21st Century: there are cameras at every corner of the street, everyone has a cell phone, and there are tv programs and sometimes even the national news. For me, it's inconceivable that someone can go for a walk one day and then go missing for fifty or more years.
So yes, this book didn't cure my anxiety.
At first, I thought the author was trying to use a metaphor: “some people vanish with no reason but, in reality, it’s because they lose themselves first” or something like that. But probably I read too much into this since the beginning. There's no big message under Sandy’s story, only a poor explanation and poor editing for the tragedy of having a loving person missing.
I’m a little disappointed, but Cecelia Ahern wrote so many books and not all of them can be best sellers.
But it's not a bad story, you know. If you read it with a light spirit and less expectation than me, I bet you'll enjoy it even more than I did.
↠ 3 stars