The Valentine's Card

by Juliet Ashton

[Leah]

When I heard about The Valentine’s Card by Juliet Ashton, I thought it sounded like a very interesting read. I received a proof copy just before Christmas, but didn’t have the time then to read it (if you work at a supermarket you will absolutely understand why December is the WORST TIME EVER to read a book). But with a week off in January, I knew I would blow through my books like a reading machine, and after finishing all the books I absolutely had to read, I came to The Valentine’s Card, and I was quite excited about it, but, sadly, it didn’t live up to my expectations.

Juliet Ashton is lauded as a bright new voice in fiction, although I very much suspect (read: I know) it’s a pseudonym for another Chick Lit author. I know which author it is, as well, but it seems that reinventing yourself is the way it is in 2013, with Holly McQueen becoming Angela Woolfe, so let’s forget that, shall we? For me, I just couldn’t get into The Valentine’s Card. I read the first page before I started it, and I thought it was mildly interesting, that’s why I picked it up (in 2013, I do not have the truck for bad books) and read it, but I never seemed to click with it. Mostly because nothing actually seemed to happen. After Sim died, Orla headed to London and that was that. Due to the fact his diary went missing, that whole strand died within the first few pages. I’d thought Orla was going to go to London to follow Sim’s diary, to see what he did in those days before he died, but no. The diary went missing. So, basically, Orla went to London to get Sim’s belongings, couldn’t find the most important belonging, so stayed.

It just… nothing happened. Except Orla talked to a valentine’s card that she’d received the day he died. Which, I’m sorry, is batty in the first degree. It’s the way madness lies, talking to a card. A card she wouldn’t even open, even though she knew what the contents were. Her mam kept ringing her and I thought she would have had her committed, but no. I think the issue is we didn’t see enough of Sim. His journal entries were sparse (and didn’t show him in the best light, at all) and I believe the novel would have worked SO MUCH BETTER if we’d seen a lot more of Sim before his untimely death. We never really saw Orla and Sim together so you never really got to see how much they meant to each other and Orla’s grief just didn’t wash with me. I’m sure she was grieving, don’t get me wrong, it just didn’t move me how I expected it would, which made me really sad.

I just didn’t think The Valentine’s Card was anything like I expected. There were bright spots – Marek, the Polish guy who befriends Orla; Maude, Orla’s landlady. I just feel there was too much attachment to the valentine’s card that was just a bit too creepy for me. If that was someone you knew in real life, you would be worried for their mental state. It’s a shame, I didn’t want to write a bad review. I just couldn’t get into the book, and I pretty much skim-read the last 200 pages, and the worst of it is, I didn’t even miss anything. It didn’t work for me, that’s all I can say. As the novel was from Orla’s point of view, albeit in third-person, I feel the novel could possibly have gotten us a lot closer to her by being in first-person. I don’t really know what else to say, and I do apologise that I didn’t like it, but it just wasn’t my cup of tea.