Three Amazing Things About You by Jill Mansell

Rating: 4/5 

The Blurb

International bestseller Jill Mansell breaks hearts and puts them back together in this sweet and poignant story about life’s choices. Three Amazing Things About You features a young woman with a secret. She’s in love with a guy who’s seriously out of bounds—and to make things even more complicated, Hallie doesn’t have long to live. Her doctors may not be able to fix her, but she’s determined to spend her last months helping others through her popular advice column, and she’s going to enjoy every remaining moment of her crush. Everyone’s lives are full of choices, for better or worse, but the amazing thing about life is how we’re all connected in ways we don’t even know. And, on occasion, we get to see the ways we change each others’ lives for the better.

My Take

The characters are all delightful (except for one, which you will take great relish in wanting to throttle at first opportunity.)   Hallie’s unrequited love will tug on your heartstrings, her sense of humor is endearing and her fight with trying to live the life she has as best she can while battling cystic fibrosis is brave, indeed. Tasha and Rory meet in a hilarious manner, and in a move just short of writing a Craigslist “missed connection” post, he finds her again. He is an adrenaline junkie, and she is anything but – a less likely match is not to be imagined, but they work.  Flo is just lovely although her landlord cat, not so much, and I can’t even explain that one – you’ll have to read the book. She is the dig in/no-nonsense girl so typical with British authors and I have come to love characters like this (perhaps because I’m anything but). Her budding relationship with Zander, the well-off nephew of her cat’s late owner (I said it was a hoot), was perhaps the least developed at the start but grew on me.

All in all, it is Jill Mansell’s characters that keep me coming back book after book – quirky and funny and endearing (or infuriating), they always worm their way into my heart, and leave me wanting to know “and what next” even as the tale ends.

Three different storylines flow through the book and collide in a most unexpected way – and as my brain is usually rushing ahead, I was thinking “Oh NO she wouldn’t take the plot that way…” and she didn’t – she gave it a totally different and unexpected twist.

While solidly in the chick-lit camp, Three Amazing Things About You has a bit more depth and weight to it than others I’ve read of late. At times touching and hilarious, this is yet another book by Jill Mansell that does not disappoint. Fans of Sophie Kinsella will love this book, and if you have not yet discovered this amazing British author, you need to remedy that situation right away.

I was provided an advanced reader copy by NetGalley and Sourcebooks in exchange for my review.

All thoughts and typos are my own.