One Hundred Names - Cecelia Ahern

Goodreads Synopsis:

EVERYONE HAS A STORY TO TELL

Journalist Kitty Logan's career has been destroyed by scandal, and she now faces losing the woman who guided her and taught her everything she knew. At her mentor's bedside, Kitty asks her: 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 complete. Kitty has to not only track down and meet people on the list, but find out what connects them. And, in the process of hearing ordinary people's stories, she uncovers Constance's - and starts to understand her own.

Summary:

Kitty was in a bad place, she made a wrong accusation on live television. She accused a respectable teacher of child molestation and fathering a child with a student. This cost Kitty her job at the network and a suspension at the magazine. While all this was playing out, her friend and mentor, Constance, is at the hospital succumbing to the cancer that took over her body.

One day, Kitty finds herself visiting Constance for the first time in months. She casually asks Constance if there's one story that she wanted to write but never got the chance to, the one that got away. Constance tells her to pull a file from her office and send it back to the hospital so they could discuss the story. It took Kitty a while to get back to her friend and when she did, it was too late.

On the magazine's office, Kitty is still fighting to stay in the only job she has left. They are going to publish a tribute issue for Constance and Kitty is assigned to do the piece that Constance never got the chance to write. When they open the file, they find a list of one hundred names; no synopsis, no write-up and no link whatsoever. Just one hundred names. It is Kitty's job to find out what the connection between these people are. The only problem is, she only has two weeks before publication. And her boss won't let her use the office because advertisers are threatening to pull out if they see her name in the magazine.

She tries to find the people on the list and successfully locates six of them but can't find any link between them at all:

Name #2: Ambrose Nolan - owner of a butterfly farm and museum; has a huge birthmark on her face that caused her to become the most shy person on the planet.

Name #3: Eva Wu - personal shopper; the one you hire when you can't think of a gift for a loved one.

Name #4: Jedrek Vysotski - a polish aircraft mechanic who lost his job during the recession; wants to put his name on the Guiness Book of World Records.

Name #6: Bridget Murphy - an old lady living in a home; nearing her 85th birthday and on that day wants to return to her home town and collect some winnings from an old bet made more than 50 years ago.

Name #7: Mary-Rose Godfrey - make-up artist and hairstylist to the sick and dying; gets fake proposed to by her best friend every week.

Name #67 Archie Hamilton - an ex-convict who flips burgers and can hear people's prayers.

With only a limited time, she tries to focus on these six people from the list and side-sweeps the other ninety-four. During the interviews she's conducted, she learns that there is no connection at all. She is reminded of Constance's founding vision; that there is a story in every single one of us. Kitty assumes that Constance grabbed hold of a phone book and randomly highlighted names to built this list.

Review:

First of all, I think this book totally made a fool of me, I was expecting that there would at least twenty to fifty names that she'd get a hold of and that there would at least be a connection, a link between them. It started out as a random list and ended as is.

Secondly, I didn't like the fact that there were unnecessary characters in the story such as her friend Sally, Steve's housemates, Richie was also someone that the book could do without, Cheryl, the kid who stole her bike (that bit from the story was also unnecessary) and the kid who mimicked her every word. There are enough characters as it is with the list and the people around her so there was no need for these other people to be there at all. It was a very confusing read as the author jumps from one narrator to another without warning.

I was getting anxious when I was halfway through the book and she still hasn't found anyone on the list. Also when I was almost at the end and she still haven't started on the piece.

I used to love Cecelia Ahern's books, but this one disappointed me. She veered so far away from the enchanted stories she used to write. I remember reading A Place Called Here, Thanks For The Memories and The Gift and loving them. I don't really know if I'm growing up and her stories are becoming less interesting to me or she's losing her touch. I recently read The Time of My Life and did not enjoy it as well.

All in all, I did not like this book and it was a drag reading it. Took me two weeks to finish it because I was so uninterested. But I'm giving her A for effort in imagination with the charcters on the list and their stories.