... Even though I knew all the jokes already!
Rachel's Holiday is, rather obviously, about a girl called Rachel. She has grown up the middle child in a family of five sisters and, as a result, feels very average. Her two older sisters are brainy, and her two younger sisters are unbelievably ... Read review
Advantages: Hilarious, bittersweet and utterly compelling Disadvantages: Nothing at all wrong with it
...jokes already!
Rachel's Holiday is, rather obviously, about a girl called Rachel. She has grown up the middle child in a family of five sisters and, as a result, feels very average. Her two older sisters are brainy, and her two younger sisters are unbelievably beautiful. She doesn't really know WHAT she has going for her, and her parents' slightly oblivious attitude to her has reinforced her self image. As a result she has escaped ... ...mercy. The only highlight on Rachel's horizon is Chris, a good-looking drug addict who has fantastic taste in boots and seems to be interested in her. But then, he also seems to be interested in Misty, the beautiful young writer/alcoholic/superbitch from hell.
Interspersed with all the fun on the"health farm" is flashbacks to Rachel's past, both of incidents from her childhood which show you why she has ended up the way she ... more
I'm a huge Marian Keyes fan, as I'm sure a lot of people are out there! This was the first book of hers I read and it remains my favourite to this day. I believe I don't have my copy cos I lent it to a girl I used to work with, but I remember having to cellotape bits of the cover together i was so embarrassed at the dog-eared state it was in. I have read it approximately twice a year since I bought it in 1998, and lent it to at least six or seven people! I also read it out loud to my sister (she's only a bit younger than me and CAN read, but hates reading, but she made me read all Marian Keyes books to her after I read that!) who loved it and practically wet herself laughing. As did I. Even though I knew all the jokes already!
Rachel's Holiday is, rather obviously, about a girl called Rachel. She has grown up the middle child in a family of five sisters and, as a result, feels very average. Her two older sisters are brainy, and her two younger sisters are unbelievably beautiful. She doesn't really know WHAT she has going for her, and her parents' slightly oblivious attitude to her has reinforced her self image. As a result she has escaped home as soon as possible, travelling to Prague with her best friend Brigit who has a job there, and ending up in the Big Apple when she once more follows Brigit and her blossoming career. And that's where her and Brigit have remained, working, partying and taking recreational drugs fairly often.
And that's where the book begins. Rachel is being ferried back to Ireland by her sensible "lickarse" older sister Margaret, after taking an overdose. Allegedly.
According to Rachel (the story is in the first person) what happened was, she took a couple of pills to go to sleep but accidentally overdid it as she was drunk, she'd been writing a poem about a shoplifter who decided that they couldn't go on being a criminal, and Brigit had found the note, added 2 and 2 together and came up with about 5000, and assumed it was a suicide note.
According to Rachel, Brigit majorly overreacted.
According to Rachel, she didn't NEED to have her stomach pumped.
And, according to Rachel, she doesn't have a drug problem. She just takes the odd drug to relax.
And now, against her will, she is being dragged to a rehab place in Ireland to "recover". She is immensely scornful of this since she doesn't have a problem. But she'll cope. After all, rehab places are like health farms right. She'll just "pretend" to be an addict, go along with it, get all the beauty treatments, go on a diet and then go back to New York looking fantastic and get back together with her ex-boyfriend Luke, who ended it with her after the "overdose".
However, things don't work how she planned.
The Cloisters turns out to be full of middle-aged men in brown jumpers, endless cups of tea, a holier-than-thou roommate called Chaquie (yes, that IS pronounced Jackie!) and one long neverending group therapy session with an evil nun called Josephine who likes to see her inmates cry and beg for mercy. The only highlight on Rachel's horizon is Chris, a good-looking drug addict who has fantastic taste in boots and seems to be interested in her. But then, he also seems to be interested in Misty, the beautiful young writer/alcoholic/superbitch from hell.
Interspersed with all the fun on the"health farm" is flashbacks to Rachel's past, both of incidents from her childhood which show you why she has ended up the way she is, and flashbacks to New York which highlight the aspects of her problem. The New York flashbacks also concentrate a lot on her relationships with both Brigit and Luke as her problem starts to affect things between them.
There is also a lot of family background and incidents involving them. If you have already read "Watermelon", Claire the heroine in that is actually Rachel's oldest sister so you will have already been introduced to the Walsh family. The best characters in the family are Anna (the beautiful new-age bimbo) and Helen (the beautiful evil cow) and Helen appears the most often in this. She is one of the funniest characters as she is just such a bitch sometimes, and turns up on Rachel's visitor days and winds all the "brown jumpers" around her fingers.
As the book continues, it becomes more obvious that Rachel does have a problem, and what is good about it is that your realisation of this grows as the book develops and more past incidents emerge. So the reader is realising the extent of the problem at the same time as Rachel herself is coming to terms with it. You also see the progression of the other addicts towards their realisation of their addiction and attempting to overcome it, so the process is not simply Rachel's.
It is interesting to see whether she overcomes the problem, and how - or if - she will deal with a life without drugs. But what is the best thing about this book as far as I'm concerned is the way that Keyes brings so much humour into the situation. It is by far the funniest book I have EVER read, and it's about a serious subject. A lot of the New York incidents are hilarious (the leather trousers, the see through chair, the tattoo - you have to read it to see the funny side, there's no point explaining!) and there's lot of witty banter in New York, the Cloisters and in the Walsh home that practically had me weeping with laughter. Keyes paints her characters with so much detail that you feel like you know them inside out, and you really DO know Rachel inside out!
The thing which I think makes it all so real is the fact that Marian Keyes herself had an alcohol problem. This means she knows how to get into the character of an addict which increases the realism of Rachel's personality, from the denial to the realisation of the truth.
I love this book so much that I have advised just about everyone I know to read it. It's a pretty long book (we're talking about 700 pages) but it is a very easy read, the time passes so quick when you read it. It is so compelling and funny and REAL, that it is virtually impossible to put down. If you haven't read it already, I would thoroughly advise you to.
Price - £6.99 from all bookstores (£3.99 on amazon)
Advantages: Great story Disadvantages: A bit predictable
I have read quite a few of Marian Keyes books recently (something to do with the job lot I bagsied on eBay not long ago!) I have a very wide range of reading tastes from historical romance books to Shaun Hutson gore fests! I fancied a change and after the popularity of all the hype about Brigit Jones type thirty-something books, I thought I would give them a go. Rachel’s Holiday was the third Marian Keyes book I have read, and in my opinion one of ... ...the star turn in this book. Rachel Walsh is approaching thirty, living in New York, had a history of tragic failed romances and has finally found a boyfriend who she has been with a few months and that she actually likes. She is a bit of a fashion victim, well Ok a lot of a fashion victim. She had a council house upbringing in Ireland, with parents that she felt she could never please no matter how hard she tried. Her sisters were always better, ...
WelshTigergirl 27.02.2004
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Ciao members have rated this review on average: very helpful Review of Rachel's Holiday - Marian Keyes
Advantages: Entertaining read, slightly more depth than the average chick-lit Disadvantages: Unchallenging, a bit over-long
...from her friend Brigit later, Rachel's sister has been despatched by her horrified parents to drag her back home to Ireland at all costs. Thoroughly unimpressed by these events - after all, her fondness for a few recreational drugs is hardly a problem, is it? She's hardly an addict, after all, they're skeletally thin, have dirty hair, track marks and spend all their time hanging around run-down tower blocks, right? - Rachel is slightly mollified ... ...surprisingly compelling as Keyes charts Rachel's journey through humiliating group-therapy sessions and more, among a selection of fellow inmates who are not quite what she had anticipated. There's plenty of pop psychology here, but it's strangely gripping at the same time.
Marian Keyes has been open about her own struggles with alcoholism, and it is clear that she has drawn on her experience in writing this novel, although Rachel's "issues" are ...
sheri3004 15.11.2005
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Ciao members have rated this review on average: very helpful Review of Rachel's Holiday - Marian Keyes
Advantages: makes you laugh out loud. Disadvantages: didn't want it to end.
Rachel's Holiday sounds like the sort of book that is all about foreign holiday's,even the
picture on the front of the book,apair of mules,just nice for walking along the beach.
In actual fact,rachel's so called holiday turns out to be a drying out clinic.
She doesn't think she needs the clinic,as she has a nice life in America,sharing an apartment
with her best friend Brigit.
Rachel also has a boy friend Luke,but after taking an overdose,which ... ...How-ever,Brigit has had enough,and rings Rachel's mom,back in Ireland,explains what's happened,
and before she can blink,her eldest sister,Margaret and her huband Paul,are in her apartment explaining they have come to take her home,very strict orders from their father,and she is to enter a clinic.
Rachel come's from a normal irish family,four sisters,mom and dad,both church going people.
sadly the sisters are all fighting to out do each other,which ...
royray 19.10.2002
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Ciao members have rated this review on average: very helpful Review of Rachel's Holiday - Marian Keyes
I loved rachel's holiday. It is about a girl (you've guessed it) called rachel who is addicted to drugs and alchohol but cant admit it to herself. She lives in new york with her friend but when things get out of hand she phones Rachels parents who check her into a rehab centre called cloisters. she pictures it with a sauna and fully equiped gym and famous people like the priory and gets an awful shock when after two days it sinks in that none of ... ...believe that she does'nt have a problem but you realise that she does when she finally admits it to herself.When members of her family and her closest friend and her boyfriend all attend group therapy sessions at the cloisters to help her admit that she has a very serious problem.
Slowly but surely she comes to terms with her addiction. It is a hilarious account of different stories but it makes you sit up and take notice. I felt like i was going ...
jenny029 29.06.2001
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Ciao members have rated this review on average: very helpful Review of Rachel's Holiday - Marian Keyes
Advantages: good long read Disadvantages: unputdownable
...approach to the story of Rachel's stay at the cloisters. we are treated to an array of interesting and totally believable characters, we can laugh with them, cry with them sympathise with and even dislike them at times, but we cannot help but be interested in their stories and the outcomes of the same.
The inmates, as Rachel refers to them, are recovering from various addictions and as we follow their progress we are spared the harrowing details ... ...is a harrowing account of Rachel's life beyond the cloisters.
I do not think for one moment that Ms Keyes meant this novel to be a self help book, non the less, there are many points that made this reader mull over them, and yes I would say that there is a message in the plot.
a thoroughly good read as usual.
good value at £7.99 and a bumper read of 620 pages *paperback
pulished by Penguin Books Ltd (29 Jan 1998) ...
icklebet 12.04.2007
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Ciao members have rated this review on average: very helpful Review of Rachel's Holiday - Marian Keyes
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Advantages: A very readable book - funny, sexy and sad at the same time Disadvantages: Depressing subject but well covered. Quite a long book.
.
However her first book 'Watermelon' was published in 1995.
Her books so far are :
Fiction
Watermelon (1995)
Lucy Sullivan is Getting Married (1996)
Rachel's Holiday (1998)
Last Chance Saloon (1999)
Sushi for Beginners (2000)
No Dress Rehearsal (2000)
Angels (2002)
The Other Side of the Story (2004)
Anybody Out There? (2006)
This Charming Man (2008)
The Brightest Star in the Sky (2009)
Non-fiction
Under the Duvet (2001)
Further under the Duvet (Cracks In My Foundation) (2005)
This review is about my favourite of MarianKeyes books to date - 'Rachel's Holiday'.
Although this is the second book in the Walsh Family series following 'Watermelon' you do not need to read the first book to read this one.
With her books MarianKeyes helps you to find out new things about each character through a new ...
Advantages: Great read, real page turner Disadvantages: Took a few chapters to get in to
to waste on someone thats just not right.
I definitely found this book to be one that was almost impossible to put down although it did take a couple of chapters (maybe 3 or 4) to grab my interest and make me realise what a real page turner it was!
As with most books of this style alls well that ends well (well, pretty much anyway!)
Others books from MarianKeyes:
Watermelon
Lucy Sullivan Is Getting Married
Rachel's Holiday
Sushi For Beginners
No Dress Rehearsal
Angels
The Other Side Of The Story
Anybody Out There?
This Charming Man
Available on Amazon.co.uk from £4.62 new and £0.01 used & new.
ISBN: 0-14-027180-5
Information About The Author: www.mariankeyes.com
You can also find this review on dooyoo.co.uk under the same title, username katykicker :) ...
Advantages: Modern-day theme and issues, some funny bits Disadvantages: Heavy-going read, lots of characters
This Charming Man is the latest release from MarianKeyes. Her other works include Lucy Sullivan is Getting Married, Watermelon, Rachel's Holiday, Sushi for Beginners, Angels and Is Anybody Out There, to name a few.
MarianKeyes' style is that of a chick-lit novel that deals with some quite hefty issues, but usually have an 'against-the-odds' love story thrown in for good measure. In previous books we have seen elements of alcholism, drug abuse, bereavement, the effects of divorce and depression. In This Charming Man we are taken into a new realm, that of domestic violence. Despite the heavyweight topics in the books there are humourous overtones to the story as the main characters struggle through the changes in their lives and deal with their problems. I'm a happy ending fanatic and I do like the way that most of the books ...
Rachel Walsh is twenty-seven, infatuated with Luke, and has a drugs problem. When forcibly taken to the Cloisters, a drug rehabilitation clinic, she is outraged, not believing she is really an addict. Depressed, and missing Luke, she seeks comfort with Chris, whose past may cause further trouble. From the author of WATERMELON.
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