Marian Keyes is one of my favorite authors. Which is odd because her books don't dwell in the cocoon of comfort in which I usually burrow. No, her novels, despite being rife with Jo Malone candles and witty wisecracks, are steeped in real life and all its complex emotions. Yet however paradoxically, there is a kind of comfort in that. So when I'd heard that Keyes had written a follow-up to Rachel's Holiday, namely Again, Rachel, I was all in.
Rachel is one of the five beloved Walsh sisters, a quintet of flawed, take-no-prisoners, hilarious women. Each has her own book -- and her own demons. So, in Rachel's Holiday, middle sister Rachel isn't jetting off to Paris or Ibiza. She's going to rehab. Her stint at Dublin's Cloisters is as harrowing and heartbreaking as you'd imagine, albeit tempered by Keyes's signature snark. Now, twenty years later, Keyes revisits Rachel's story in Again, Rachel. A counselor at the Cloisters, Rachel seems to have it all figured out. But twenty years is a long time, and a lot has happened.
A master storyteller, Keyes doesn't fill us in all at once, instead feeding us flashbacks filtered through the voice of her scrappy and sympathetic but undeniably unreliable narrator. In between, Rachel navigates the present day, which entails heart-to-hearts with her sponsor, Nola. Whenever Rachel is stymied by one of life's questions, Nola tells her to "golden key" it. In other words, put it aside until the universe presents an answer. And although this isn't what Rachel wants to hear, it ends up being what she needs.
Again, Rachel is hard to put down but also hard to read, on account of all the rawness and realness. The result, however, is a sequel that's more powerful than the original. Maybe I feel that way because Rachel's older or because I'm older. But there's no escaping that Again, Rachel is layered with, well, everything. It's one of the saddest books I've ever read, but also one of the best. Because it helps you hope while appreciating what you've got, however painful or imperfect.
And as Nola would undoubtedly say, that's the golden key.
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