The Woman Who Stole My Life

Marian Keyes has always remained one of my favourite authors, her lovely homely books about big energetic Irish families are always humorous and engaging and have very often had me laughing out loud. I was therefore full of high expectations for her latest novel “The Woman Who Stole My Life”.

From the outset this book was intriguing, we are introduced to our heroine Stella Sweeney, a forty something mum of two who has just returned to Ireland from America where she's gone from being a successful author to a person struggling to manage her teenage son and adjusting back to a smaller less exciting life than that she had in America.

Woven throughout the first part of the book are flashbacks to a few years previously when Stella contacted a potentially fatal disease which left her paralysed and unable to move or speak and stuck in intensive care. These parts of the book chart her growing relationship with her neurologist Mannix who communicates with her in a way only they can manage.

Keyes books have always been full of interesting characters, if I had one criticism of this book it would have been that there were almost too many of them. It's a book of two halves with the first firmly being about Stella's illness intertwined with her present day struggles to settle back into life in Ireland. Just as I'd gotten myself firmly into the setting of this the book seemed to take us somewhere different switching to Stella's time in America following the publication of her book. A different cast was introduced and the story just seemed to shift.

I struggled a little with this disjointed approach and by about 60% of the way through I was struggling a little. I wasn't as invested in Stella as I should have been. I even would go so far as to say I found her a tiny bit annoying. I found her a bit too flaky and I almost stopped rooting for her. When it came to the end of the book I didn't feel I'd gone on enough of a journey with her. I'd started out really feeling sorry for her during her illness but slowly the book meandered through plot twists that didn't engage me enough.

Am I disappointed by this book? If I'm honest, yes a little bit. It just seemed to lack structure. It had bits that didn't seem to add anything to the characters or plot (e.g. the whole project karma thing). It was a nice read with flashes of brilliance but I'd come to expect better from Keyes.