A good read.This was a very well written and unusual story but it was interesting seeing everything through Alice's eyes as we follow her story coming from a difficult childhood to her beautiful end where she sees different auras and colours that impacts her life.Found the chapters too long for me but I'm sure Cecelia Ahern fans will love it

What an absolutely beautiful book! Ahern weaves stories so skilfully you’re drawn in from the very start and hooked until the end. Alice and her synesthesia make this such an interesting read, and as we follow her and see the impact this has on her life you can’t help but love her.
A definite must read.

Cecelia is a magical writer, she draws you so into her characters world's you feel like you are a part of the story. This book is about a girl who has synesthesia (she sees emotions in colours) and it really made me really connect with the confusion and sense of overwhelm she would feel. It's quite a sad tale, but enthralling at the same time.

I enjoyed the story, however the one thing that stops it being 5 star is the flashbacks to the past were really confusing. One minute she was writing about the present, the next the past with no clear delineation between the 2. I don't know if that's because I was reading it on the Kindle, perhaps it's more obvious in the print book. But I struggled to keep up with the hopping between past and present

Thank you Net Gallery for the advance copy.

As a big Cecelia Ahern fan I can categorically say if this was my first book of hers it would be the last. First the book was very jumpy with no notice one minute it’s the present time, then we jump back in time for a little bit of a random story. As it’s being reviewed it didn,t have any chapters in so made it a bit worst. The story it’s self was nice I suppose but again very jumpy, one minute she was at her brothers the next she was in a pub meeting her Dad. Like I said I am a fan of Cecelia,s other work and me and my sister love telling each other when she has a new book out, unfortunately I will not be singing the praises of this book. The story of Alice and her being able to read people by there auras is interesting and I suppose everyone would like to be able to do that, I certainly would as a migraine sufferer I wouldn’t like the migraine that goes with it though. I feel like the story is not up to my expectations. Also as someone who live in Swindon I would like to point out that it’s called the Wyvern Theatre not Swindon Theatre. This really annoyed me as it proves there was not much research gone in to this book at all. Very disappointed all round

Wonderful, wonderful, wonderful. Completely captivating and a beautifully crafted rollercoaster of emotions. I absolutely loved it.

Another classic from Cecilia Aherne. I thoroughly enjoyed this, her latest, novel and would heartily recommend it.

Firstly I am grateful to NetGalley and the publishers for an ARC of this book and am leaving my honest review voluntarily.
This is a very thought-provoking book about Alice, a person with synesthesia. Each person Alice meets has their own colours enabling Alice to see who they truly are and what they are feeling on the inside despite what they might show on the outside. Whilst this may be seen as a gift Alice experiences huge difficulties managing the overwhelming emotions it creates in her.
The book allows us to travel with Alice, through her extremely difficult childhood and into adult life as she tries to make sense of her super powers, using them for the good of others whilst trying to protect herself and live a satisfying family life herself.
Whilst the book is fictional the concepts in it made me think about the power of others emotions on people in real life i.e. those in the helping professions and how we need to take care of ourselves before we can really look after others.
A very different and enjoyable read.

This is a story a traumatic childhood experiences and trauma bonding, written through the lens of synesthesia that the main character and first-person narrator is exhibiting. The idea for the plot was great, its execution - not so much, in my opinion.

Cecelia Ahern dedicates so much time and space to the protagonist's early childhood experiences, that the rest of the story (and reader follows Alice until her very last day) seems too rushed.

What I found interesting, was an attempt to adapt the first-person narration to Alice's age. In first chapters, she sounds very child-like, uses simple words and associations. Then her language matures.

What I found annoying, was the focus on the synesthetic experiences of Alice that got truly boring after a while - the protagonist focuses on colours of people's auras but there's very little explanation on how she learned to interpret them.

Imagine the ability to simply learn about others, from the colour that surrounds them!
We meet Alice as a child, and follow her as she experiments and adapts with her gift; I could not agree more with the likeness of Alice to a superhero.
For me, the story moved at a good pace, covering relationships and life, without the content becoming entrenched in the details, that the reader is able to fill for themselves; the style of narration allows the reader to sense the weight and impact of Alice's decisions.
I was fortunate to get an advance copy of this book via NetGalley (I chose it because of the cover) and I am glad that I did because it did not disappoint in subject or characters.
This is a book for you if have read others by Cecelia Ahern, are interested in auras, or simply find it fascinating to 'people watch'.

Alice has a life-changing moment when she is merely eight years old.
Her world becomes filled with colours that can be pleasant and some that are the exact opposite.
To be more precise, she sees colours associated with all the people, and even plants, around her. Like auras, but that's not something she knows - yet.
This confusing discovery is a lot for a child to take in, and it impacts her behaviours, as well as her relationships.
She is already living with her two brothers and mother, who is deep in her own mental health issues, and as time goes by, she finds herself caring for her wheelchair-bound mother, living a life she is coping with, but suffocating herself as well.
She does manage to live a life of her own, with the urging of her older brother, and moves away from the toxic environment that is her childhood home.
Over the years, and with the help of certain people, she begins to learn how to live with this 'gift', as it is described to her, but not without many battles.
An interesting fictional recount of how someone with synesthesia may see life and the world around them.
Many thanks to NetGalley and Harper Collins UK for an ARC.

I wasn't quite sure what to expect of this novel. It's written in first person, present tense, something I often find off putting.. Except when the prose is so well written that I forget about the tense. It only took a paragraph or so for me to know that this was one of those books.

The author doesn't waste time on backstory but gets right to the situation at hand. I don't want to give any spoilers, but I love the way reality and the unlikely or even impossible blend together here. It's a neat trick and one which few writers manage to pull off.

This is a story about family and not fitting in and, well, fitting in differently. Recommended.

I have read all of Cecilia Ahern's books and loved them all, so I was so excited to be chosen to be given an arc for her latest book. Thank you, Netgalley and Harper Collins, for this opportunity.
Alice can see others' emotions, feelings, and personalities from their colours. This didn't seem too far-fetched to me as we've all heard of auras, and what a fascinating idea that some of us could actually see them.
Initially, this is a curse for Alice. Brought up in a toxic home with a mother suffering from mental illness, she can see the damage being done to herself and her siblings. The book goes along in this vein for the majority of the book and was absorbing and fascinating on the whole. I did feel that apart from Alice, the other characters weren't as well rounded, and I would have liked to see more of each of them. I also felt the last 30% of the book was just rounding things up, not an awful lot happened. The very last part was beautiful and emotional. Thank you, Cecilia, another fabulous story.

I have to admit this is the first book I have read by Cecelia Ahern, and I could not put it down. A Thousand Different Ways tells the story of Alice who has synaesthesia and is seen as been different and difficult as she tries to navigate her way through her life with her mother and brothers.
This book from the very first page drew me in and made me want to know more with every page turn I couldn’t recommend this book highly enough.

Cecelia Aherne seems to write about people who are ‘different’ and she does just that in this novel. Alice sees people’s auras swirling around them and can judge if a person is good or bad by their colours. The story follows Alice from childhood through her difficult life and alights here an there on a particularly challenging or emotional episode. I enjoyed the book overall but found it unsatisfactory somehow. It never really seems to settle into a rhythm and I found the end chapters too disjointed and rushed. A good read but not a great one.

I adored everything about this book! Alice has a special gift and can see people's auras in colours and sense their moods and what's going on for them. A true empath, who has to learn how to live with her gift so that she doesn't become overwhelmed by other's emotions. She "knows" strangers just at a first meeting and scans them like an x-ray to discover who they are.

This is a book about love, trust, mysticism, family, acceptance, humanity, compassion and so much more

"And I now know that if you don't feel your own pain, you cannot recognise it in others. Our own suffering can cultivate the ability to help others"

What an unusual concept. Alice sees colours, colours that represent the moods of those around her. She grows up in a difficult houses with an unpredictable mother, so her abilities are at best ignored and at worst, used as a weapon with which to taunt her.
This novel follows Alice growing up, dealing with the family and her own struggles. It's fascinating and I loved the character of Alice.
The only thing I struggled with was that the last part of the book is very rushed. Suddenly we have the next 40-50 years of Alice's life in one chapter. I was so confused by the opening of that, that I had to go back and re-read to figure out where we were in the tineline. But I did enjoy the book, although it is a difficult read in places.

Alice is a character vividly brought to life, alongside her desperately flawed mother & very different brothers. The descriptions of the colours that she sees throughout her life & how other people affect her is well explained. I loved this story & don’t hesitate to recommend it - I’ll be buying it for friends.

Absolutely incredible; from the toxic parent to the troubled and troubling brother and the girl with the strange power the characters are well balanced and tell a story of triumph and strength over adversity.
My only complaint would be that the latter half of the book moved way too fast for me, bounding through the adult years of her life where I really wanted to linger hour by hour with Alice.
5 stars are not enough!

Imagine a life where you get to know someone at first glance, their current mood and inner depths. Then imagine how that person’s ‘mood’ can transfer over to you if you get too close, let them in. This is Alice, a child and young woman growing up in pitiable family circumstances who lives her life seeing people’s colourful auras. That is until she eventually spies someone who has no colours.

A journey from her home in Ireland via Liverpool and London. A journey to uncover and rewrite herself.

Alice’s character is well written, the settings are detailed and dialogue is authentic. There is however a little too much jumping from one time frame to another or brief revisits to previous characters who are then just as quickly forgotten. And I would love to have had an explanation as to why one character in millions (bar a brief encounter in New York) has no colours whatsoever unlike everyone else. I think I know why this person was introduced but it isn’t obvious - not to me anyway - and so I’m left wondering if I’m just not astute, perceptive or clever enough to really understand what the author wants me to take away from this novel not just from Alice’s point of view but for the standpoint of all of the rest of us.

For those who don’t know, I am a huge Cecelia Ahern fan having read every book on release from P.S. I Love You, which still remains one of my favourite ever books. So it is safe to say that as soon as a new title from Cecelia is announced quite a lot of excitement follows which was accelerated further this time due to receiving an advanced readers copy of the upcoming 2023 release.

‘In A Thousand Different Ways’ tells us the story of Alice, a woman who has had to deal with a multitude of emotions her entire life, thanks to her ability of seeing and feeling everything that other people around her are experiencing. From happiness to cautioned, to anger and sadness, life can be more than overwhelming at times for Alice who thinks that staying away from people would be the safest option, or at least find a way of limiting contact to live her life as she wants.

Once again from the very first chapter, as so often happens in Ahern’s books, you are drawn in from the very start, wanting to know more. The concept of seeing colours to represent emotions is genius, to have the main character be able to see and absorb these feelings and how this insight into others might not be a ‘gift’ is just captivating. On several occasions through the book you could relate to how you really don’t know what is going on with others around you, life seemingly perfect on the outside but possibly something that couldn’t be further from the truth.

I feel like this is a book that will stay with me for quite a while, I literally can’t stop thinking about it days after reading. I inhaled this book, every single word of it and I couldn’t recommend more - add it to your To-Be-Read list for 2023 now!