The Book of Tomorrow by Cecelia Ahern

The Book of Tomorrow is an adult novel with young adult appeal given the teenage narrator. While the book starts out slow, eventually a mystery develops and sucks you in.

Tamara's life is turned upside down when her father commits suicide. Now she and her mother have lost everything and have to leave Dublin and head to the country to live with her odd aunt and uncle. Tamara is bored and sulky but eventually meets a traveling library where she discovers an odd locked book. When she finally opens it, she discovers that it's a blank diary. Deciding to finally write in it, she opens the book again and sees that she has already written in it - which is impossible. This diary seems to tell her what is going to happen tomorrow. When what is written actually comes true, Tamara uses it to her advantage to try and change the things she doesn't want to happen. In the meantime, her mother is withering away under a depression that Tamara doesn't feel is right and is desperate to help despite the opposition from her aunt. And her intrigue in some castle ruins leads to a mystery that will blow her mind even more so than a diary that can tell the future.

I struggled to get into this novel because at first it didn't read like a story in the sense that Tamara was telling me everything I needed to know before the story really felt like it started. Once things got going, though, and you were living in the moment with the narrator, things got more interesting. Slowly the mystery started to develop and suspicions began that became really interesting. Even without the diary predicting the future, it's a good story as Tamara's curiosity leads her to discover new things about the people and the world around her. It was nice to see her character change and develop into a better person because she was somewhat of a brat at the beginning. She's not perfect come the end, but definitely more likable.

This book is worth sticking out the slow beginning. I ended up liking it a lot more than I thought I would.
MMK