On the Other Side by Carrie Hope Fletcher - Review

Hello Book Lovers!!!

I've just finished On the Other Side by Carrie Hope Fletcher and thoroughly enjoyed it. It was such a sweet read with the perfect ending.

So this is about a woman called Evie who dies in her sleep at the age of 82 surrounded by her children and grandchildren. When Evie arrives at her own private heaven she finds she can't open the gate as her soul is too heavy. Evie is now also her 27 year old self and has to work out how to make her soul light.

With the help of Leiffe, the two find ways for Evie to communicate with her family and friends and share all of the secrets Evie has been hiding over the years to make her soul light so she can enter her own private heaven.

On Evie's journey, we meet Vincent, a man she found herself falling in love with in her 20's. Unfortunately her family had strict rules about marriage having to be arranged and Evie's parents choosing a suitable man for her so unfortunately Evie never got to have her dream life with Vincent.

She did however still marry and have children and so Evie found that her life ended up not being too bad. However she never stopped thinking about Vincent. So when Evie works out who she needs to communicate with about the secrets she's kept, Vincent and her husband Jim are two of these people.

The story takes us through Evie's struggles growing up in a family that never really let her live her life how she wanted and instead had to lead a life that they wanted. As well as this we learn about the relationships and friendships she has had over the years and how she dealt with the ups and downs of life.

This was such a heart-warming story and I fell in love with some of the characters. One of these was Vincent as I just found him so caring and loving towards Evie. I also loved Evie; she has such a drive about her to life in general and I thought she was a truly inspirational character.

I hated Evie's parents however. I couldn't be more against their beliefs (I understand everyone has their own opinions and that's completely fine!). But what I hated was the way they treat Evie because of her wanting her life to be very different to the way they wanted it to be like.

The change between the 'heaven waiting room' and the living world was clear in the writing and that element never confused me at all. I liked the difference between these two places and I could easily see which location we were in when. One thing I did find difficult to keep up with however was the amount of characters. I did catch up eventually but it took me a while to remember who was who and who was related to who.

Overall I would recommend this book to anyone who loves a cosy, heart-warming read that you can just curl up with (burning candles would also give this reading experience the perfect atmosphere!).

Rating /5

4

Happy Reading!!!

xHannahx