13 Little Blue Envelopes - Maureen Johnson

Catching a tube in London for the first time, noticing the yellow bollards at street crossings, the zigzag lines in the middle of the road, the craziness of Rome's drivers; these are but a handful of the wonders of this book. It takes me back to my first time travelling around England and Europe and all the things I think any foreigner notices when they first go there but is never normally or accurately described in books or focused on in TV and movies.

This book reminds me of P.S. I love you, by Cecelia Ahern,  with the whole premise of letters from a dead loved on leading the main characters on an adventure to get them out of their shell or comfort zone. Don't get me wrong, I do love the idea and it would be a ball to do in real life.

Though the main character, Ginny, was only 16 or so, I found that she was written as extremely naive and don't feel that I could relate to her in that respect, but her wonder at the places she was visiting was easy. Again, I listened to this as an audio book and i found the narrator was terrible at accents and wished the whole time she tried to use them that she would stop. It as very frustrating, like when a main characters name is pronounced wrong. Also the voice she put on for Ginny was annoying and sounded like a petulant 12 year old. I feel if Ginny was 18 or 19 instead of 16 the story would have been a little more interesting, plus its so far detached from reality that Ginny's parents would have allowed her to go to Europe for a summer by herself, with no money or contactable technology, based on a request in a letter from her dead aunt.

I feel this book is trying to be a coming of age trip around Europe where aunt Peg is trying to open Ginny's eyes to other places and perspectives, but unfortunately, it fall a little flat for me and i base that on the age of Ginny and her complete inability to explore, interact or ever speak. This book has shown me, for the first time, that I can dislike the main character in a book but still enjoy the book. However this is only if I take the book at face value as a fluffy holiday/summer read.