PS I Love You Novel (A Mediocre Review)

I finished reading the entire novel in less than two days and I must say, it’s definitely far more enjoyable than the movie itself although the movie did give me faces to paste on SOME of the characters.

Here are some differences that I noticed from novel as against the movie:

1. They’re all Irish. You don’t see any Americans running around.
2. Holly gets all the letters from the start instead of the mum secretly giving it to her one by one.
3. The start of the novel is the already the part where Holly has locked herself up inside their place.
4. Holly’s parents are together.
5. Holly does have a crazy sister, far crazier than the one shown in the movie.
6. She also has other siblings so her family’s a lot bigger than in the movie (and they’re all Irish. Oh yeah, I mentioned that already.)
7. The guy linked to Holly in the novel is the guy who owns the bar rather than her mum.
8. The all-girl trip is to Lanzarote, Spain and not in Ireland.
9. Holly does not start a business of designing shoes but she does shoot for the moon which lands her a job in a popular magazine company.
10. Holly is not entirely in good terms with her in-laws (Gerry’s parents) in the novel unlike in the movie where they kiss and make-up at some point.
11. Leo’s not in the film! How can they not include Leo?! The cheek of them!
12. You don’t meet Richard, the eccentric older brother in the movie.
13. You don’t meet Declan, the aspiring film-maker, youngest brother in the movie.
14. You don’t meet Jack, Holly’s closest brother in the movie.
15. There’s Ciara, the crazy sister but her hair’s not pink in the movie.
16. You don’t meet Meredith, Richard’s bitch-wife-from-hell in the movie.
17. Denise in the novel is a player. Or you could say she dates around and just doesn’t like getting tied down. Thus the surprise of  Holly and the rest when she decides to get married.
18. John, Sharon’s husband, is Gerry’s best friend since they started school.
19. Sharon, John, Gerry and Holly have been close mates since they were young.
20. Holly’s maiden name is Kennedy. Gerry’s surname is Clarke. No Reilly there.
21. Daniel is not some sappy lame guy who has a penchant for awkward comments. But he has a thing for crazy-ass dramatic bitches.
22. In short, if you only watched the movie, you missed a shiteload of stuff. Really.

Personal thoughts:

Well, they say the novel is predictable. I didn’t find it predictable. But then, I’ve always been a sucker for tragic love stories like these (well not entirely tragic). I love the comedy of the conversations and imagining actual people delivering the lines in Irish just cracks me up everytime, especially when Leo first sees Holly after coming out of her seclusion. The paperback is a thick book but I also find it a fast read. It won’t take a person long to get into the pace of reading it.

Is it literary genius? Not exactly. It’s not something that you would put in the ranks of Charles Dickens and the others. But it’s definitely a novel that can stand the test of time. Shame that I only found out about this novel now. I’m definitely giving this book a second pass once Chil’s done reading it. She was the one who introduced me to the genre and the novel itself. Quite happy with occasional change from battling elves, humans, dwarves and dragons to mushy love stories.

I’m currently reading Rosie Dunne/Love, Rosie which is like a mushy-yet-frustrating romance novel done in similar style to C.S. Lewis’s Screwtape Letters.

Good stuff, I tell you.