Me & You

by Claudia Carroll

[Leah]

Claudia Carroll is an author whose books I wait for with bated breath every year. She’s a fabulous storyteller, and I’ve enjoyed so many of her books, so Me and You was always going to be a must-read for me. I thought it sounded so different to her other books, a bit more serious, and I was intrigued as to how it would go. Intrigued if this was how Claudia’s writing career was progressing, and interested to see what came of it. So as soon as I had downloaded my copy of her novel to my Kindle, I knew I had to start reading it as soon as possible, so one morning when I had a few spare hours before work, I headed down to the beach, found myself a bench seat and with the waves lapping at the sand, I began to read.

Me and You is definitely a departure for Claudia Carroll. It still has Claudia’s warmth and brilliant writing style, but it’s a more mature read, and I actually really loved it. The book starts with a definitive bang, as we’re introduced to Angie and we learn her best friend Kitty has stood her up. On her birthday. The day before Christmas. Angie knows, just knows, something terrible must have happened because despite Kitty’s scatty nature, she would never, ever, ever stand up her best friend. So when a few days go by and Angie hasn’t heard from Kitty, and she’s not answering her phone, and her boyfriend Simon hasn’t heard from her either, they begin to get very, very worried. It turns out Kitty’s life is nothing like they expected, and they’re about to be in for shock, something that’ll turn both their worlds upside down.

Because Me and You starts with such a bang, throwing us right in the middle of the action, I felt like I’d got into the story before I’d even started it. I was sat reading it, by the sea, and I was terrified – for Angie, for Kitty, for Simon. I was DESPERATE to know where Kitty was, why she had fled, what she was fleeing from, why someone with such a stable, well-orderedish life would just up and leave one day, without a trace. I liked how the novel was written diary-style, by Angie, it made the terror she was feeling about Kitty so much more palpable and real. I also liked how Carroll also gave us Kitty’s story, so we weren’t left in the dark. Kitty’s story was so sad, and while I loved learning more of her life before she met Angie and Simon, I also sort of dreaded it because it was just so bad. Carroll laid the story out so, so well; Chick Lit generally doesn’t deal with missing persons or police or anything serious, because generally Chick Lit, you would think, isn’t meant to be serious like that, but I loved it. Claudia Carroll likes to write plots you wouldn’t always expect and this one is her best yet.

I firmly believe that Me and You is Claudia Carroll’s best novel to date. If this is how her writing is now, it’s awesome. The short, sharp bursts of diary-style entries; the longer entries that taught us more about Kitty, it worked really, really well. You could tell Angie cared about Kitty so much, and vice versa it has to be said, and Angie was such a brilliant character, someone you could really root for, and hope that there would be some logical explanation why her best friend in the world would abandon her how she did. I absolutely loved Me and You, I literally devoured it, that morning on the beach and then later on until I got to the end. It was an amazing plot, with some memorable characters, and a cracking missing persons story, that was resolved in an even better way. I even really liked Kitty, despite her actions; you’ll just never know what you would do in any given situation! I can’t wait for Claudia’s next book, she’s just such an amazing writer and this is her best book yet!