Sundays at Tiffany's

by James Patterson and Gabrielle Charbonnet

'When you grow up, you won't remember me'

Jane Margaux was never supposed to remember her imaginary friend when he vanished from her life but he was the best friend she'd ever had and she could never let his memory fade.

Jane was a sweet, funny, chubby seven-year-old, Desperately seeking love from her self-obsessed mother, Vivienne and a father who was wrapped up in a new life with his beautiful young girlfriend. Jane's only friend was handsome, funny, thirty-something Michael. Michael was different; noone else could see him, nor did they believe he existed beyond the realms of Jane's very creative imagination. They would talk from morning until night. As Jane grew older though, the time came for Michael to leave Jane's side his work was done.

Jane couldn't forget him though, isolated and lonely, she is living in the shadows of her dramatic and over-powering mother. Over twenty years since Michael said goodbye, Jane catches a glimpse of that unforgotten face, her heart pounding, she can't believe it could be true - could it really be Michael?

This time though Michael isn't just a figment of her imagination. But will the path of true love be a smooth one? And will Jane get her happy ever after?

Sundays at Tiffany's is a heart-warming romance about a girl who until now has lived her life on the sidelines, about what it feels like to fall in love, a tale of soulmates.

• ISBN10: 0316024589
• ISBN13: 9780316024587
• Publish Date: 28 April 2008 (first published 1 April 2008)
• Publish Status: Active
• Publish Country: GB
• Imprint: Little, Brown & Company
• Format: Hardcover
• Pages: 400
• Language: English

Reviews

[Rowena]

I read this book for my book club meeting that meets next week and I enjoyed it more than I thought I would. For some reason, I really dragged my feet to get this book read but once Ames put her foot down and told me that I had to read this book before any of my other books, I got this book read. It was a really fast read for me and before I knew what was what, I was wrapped up in Jane and Michael’s world and my heart was sighing all over the dang place.

Jane is the main character and when she’s a child, she has an imaginary friend named Michael who spends time with her and keeps her company while her mother is busy building her empire. Jane’s an only child and with her mother always busy in meetings and dinners and what not, she spent a lot of time on her own. Enter Michael. Michael talked with her, he played with her and he made her happy but when she turns nine years old, Michael left her. It was time for him to move on to his next child and it was time for Jane to grow up. The way that things work is that once an imaginary friend leaves a child, the child forgets about them and they move on with their life. They grow up and other things become important to them but something happened with Jane because she never forgot Michael and Michael, never forgot about Jane.

Fast forward, many many years later: Jane is in her thirties and she’s working with her mother and just finished a successful run of the play that she wrote on Broadway. She’s in talks about taking that same play and turning it into a movie. She’s got a boyfriend who is really nice to look at but is more interested in moving his acting career to the next level than he is about Jane. And Michael is in between assignments at the moment, so he’s back in New York and when he comes across Jane after all these years, he’s thrown.

And this is where the story took off. It was interesting to read through both Michael and Jane’s point of views. They were each wrapped up in their own lives and when their lives come together again, it was super sweet. The way that they came together was nice and Patterson did a great job of showing the confusion on both of their parts and then the acceptance, and then the love. Michael and Jane were so good together that I was rooting them on from the very beginning (from when they’re thrown together again when Jane is in her thirties, not when she’s nine). The way that their worlds collided and then the way that they worked through the obstacles that were put in their ways, it all made for a wonderfully sweet story that I really enjoyed.

The characters, the gritty realness of New York and the story all made for a great way to spend a few hours but even as sweet a story as it was, it was just a fluffy story that made me sigh and then I moved on to the next story. Still, it was good.

[Terri M. LeBlanc]

A very quick read. Short, brief chapters. The story leaves a little something to be desired in terms of the reason Jane can see Michael and the very last chapter is a bit superfluous. A good beach read or a good read after having read something really dense and complicated.