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A Place Called Here [Hardcover]

Cecilia Ahern
3.0 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (2 customer reviews)
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Book Description

Jun 1 2007
Sometimes it takes losing everything to truly find yourself...

Since Sandy Shortt's childhood classmate disappeared twenty years ago, Sandy has been obsessed with missing things. Finding what is lost becomes her single-minded goal--from the lone sock that vanishes in the washing machine to the car keys she misplaced. It's no surprise, then, that Sandy's life's work becomes finding people who have vanished from their loved ones. Sandy's family is baffled and concerned by her increasing preoccupation. Her parents can't understand her compulsion, and she pushes them away further by losing herself in the work of tracking down these missing people. She gives up her life in order to offer a flicker of hope to devastated families...and escape the disappointments of her own.

Jack Ruttle is one of those devastated people. It's been a year since his brother Donal vanished into thin air, and he has enlisted Sandy Shortt to find him. But before she is able to offer Jack the information he so desperately needs, Sandy goes missing too...and Jack now finds himself searching for his brother and the one woman who understood his pain.

One minute Sandy is jogging through the park, the next, she can't figure out where she is. The path is obscured. Nothing is familiar. A clearing up ahead reveals a camp site, and it's there that Sandy discovers the impossible: she has inadvertently stumbled upon the place-- and people--she's been looking for all her life, a land where all the missing people go. A world away from her loved ones and the home she ran from for so long, Sandy soon resorts to her old habit again, searching. Though this time, she is desperately trying to find her way home...


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Product Description

From Publishers Weekly

Ahern tells the fantastical story of Sandy Shortt, a smalltown Irish girl who, at 10 years old, becomes obsessed with finding lost things after a neighborhood girl disappears. Sandy's parents fret for years about her fixation, eventually finding her help in the form of hunky high school psychologist Gregory Burton. He's not much older than Sandy, and soon enough they're both smitten, though neither moves to pursue a romantic relationship until later, after Sandy graduates and moves to Dublin, where she tracks missing persons for a living. Gregory follows and they start and stall through an awkward courtship that's cut short when Sandy, while on a jog, gets lost and winds up in a strange parallel universe, home to the people and things that have gone missing from the regular world. What happens to Sandy there, and to those she left behind, will determine not only her future but Gregory's as well. Ahern jumps around in time and space, which adds as much confusion as suspense, but the underlying message about cherishing what you have comes through loudly by the end. That a film adaptation of Ahern's P.S., I Love You is scheduled for release in late December can't hurt sales potential. (Jan.)
Copyright © Reed Business Information, a division of Reed Elsevier Inc. All rights reserved.

From Booklist

*Starred Review* Ahern's inventive fourth novel lays open the life of Sandy Shortt, who has been obsessed with missing things and people since her childhood, when her nemesis, the blond and perfect Jenny-May Butler, disappeared. At 34, Sandy tracks missing people for a living. When she's hired by Jack Ruttle to find his younger brother, who disappeared after a night out with his friends, Sandy travels to Limerick to meet her new client. The two cross paths at a gas station, but before their arranged meeting, Sandy goes on a jog and finds herself far, far off the beaten path in a land filled with people and things who went missing from all over the world. Unable to find their way home, the missing have formed their own community, which they show to the thunderstruck Sandy. And Sandy, who has always remained remote from those she should be closest to, discovers that finding the missing people and things she's spent her life looking for doesn't make up for all the things she's been missing out on in her own life. A positively magical novel, Ahern's latest sparkles with wit, compelling characters, and a truly clever premise. Huntley, Kristine

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Most helpful customer reviews
1.0 out of 5 stars Terrible! Oct 8 2012
Format:Paperback|Amazon Verified Purchase
I guess I can't really review this book considering I didn't finish it. I found the story line completley ridiculous, I couldn't relate to the main character and her obsession with lost items. I stopped reading the book half way through and have had no interest in picking it up again.
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1 of 2 people found the following review helpful
5.0 out of 5 stars Wonderfully imaginative Jan 3 2009
By Rhea
Format:Paperback
This book is both heart-breaking and uplifting. The author takes us on a journey to the place where misplaced items - and people - disappear too. This book chronicles one woman's inability to let go of the missing socks, mittens and people and her journey to the "place called here." This book is a must-read and will not disappoint.
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Most Helpful Customer Reviews on Amazon.com (beta)
Amazon.com: 3.6 out of 5 stars  49 reviews
11 of 11 people found the following review helpful
4.0 out of 5 stars Here and back July 15 2008
By Linda Pagliuco - Published on Amazon.com
Format:Hardcover
There's No Place Like Here - and Here's exactly where Sandy Shortt finds herself when she takes a side path while jogging. Sandy's an interesting individual - obsessive about finding lost things, whether they be socks, toys, pens, or people. She has turned her obsession into a career, running an agency for finding missing persons. And find some of them she does, in some most unusual ways and places. This novel is strongly reminiscent, of course, of The Wizard of Oz, but also of a newer book, The Five People You Meet in Heaven. A blend of reality and, well, unreality (not exactly fantasy), it's a modern, intriguing treatment of the timeless themes of loss, love, guilt, recovery, and fidelity. Fresh and thought provoking, and IMO, not chick lit.
15 of 19 people found the following review helpful
3.0 out of 5 stars Makes up for "If You Could See Me Now" Nov 19 2006
By Meesha - Published on Amazon.com
Format:Hardcover
I got "P.S. I Love You" and "Where The Rainbows End" for Christmas, and they were really good books, and I really enjoyed them. Unfortunately, I just couldn't get into "If You Could See Me Now", and am disappointed that it's going to be made into a film. "P.S. I Love You" is currently filmed, but it won't be out until late 2007, or early 2008, so that's not good.

Despite the disappointment of "If You Could See Me Now", as soon as "A Place Called Here" came out, I grabbed it. And it was really, really good. It's about a girl called Sandy, who starts a missing persons agency, after the mysterious disappearance of her childhood enemy, Jenna May. She also is obsessive compulsive, and labels all her items incase they go missing. Much of her stuff does go missing, and she does tear the house apart trying to find them. So she turns it into a job. She hunts down many missing people - that is, until she goes missing herself.

She finds herself in a place called "Here", and promptly finds that people live her. People that she knows, people that have been there for years since they disappeared from the 'real' world. Many of them have moved on, got married, had kids, but still long to find their way back to their old lives. When Sandy finds herself here, with no way out, she immediately becomes the missing. And she also finds all her stuff that she thought was missing.

But then the twist appears - her stuff starts to go missing. Her watch, which she wears even though it is broken, because it has sentimental value, her diary. What's happening? Everyone around her is confused, cos surely in a place full of missing items and people, something cannot go missing.

The book is very fast paced, the chapters are short, and with every new chapter, something surprising is revealed. The ending is quite abrupt, and I don't think I quite wanted it to end, but end it did. It's not a patch on her first two books, but I still did enjoy it and would definitely read it again.
9 of 11 people found the following review helpful
1.0 out of 5 stars just plain weird Jan 29 2008
By mamareadssomuch - Published on Amazon.com
Format:Hardcover
I love Ahern's books and was so eager for this one but let me tell you - it's a doozy. I couldn't even finish it. I tried! The plot about being missing without anyone missing you and being somewhere where all the missing people hang out - well, see, what I mean? Come on, Cecelia - write another winner like PS, I LOVE YOU. I'll be waiting.
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