About the Book
Sometimes you have to risk everything to find your something…
Andrew works with death for a living. Searching for people’s next of kin and attending the funerals if they don’t have anyone, he’s desperate to avoid the same fate for himself. Which is fine, because he has the perfect wife and 2.4 children waiting at home for him after a long day. At least, that’s what he’s told people.
The truth is, his life isn’t exactly as people think and the little white lie he once told is about to catch up with him.
Because in all Andrew’s efforts to fit in, he’s forgotten one important thing: how to really live. And maybe, it’s about time for him to start.
My Thoughts
Something To Live For is the story of Andrew. He works for the council and his job is to deal with the aftermath of death – he has to find if the deceased person has a next of kin. Andrew is lonely but he’s accidentally told his boss that he’s got a happy family life and now he can’t u-turn on this lie he’s living.
Something To Live For is a stunning book and I adored it. Andrew has told his boss right before he got his job that he has a wife and two children at home but this isn’t true. Andrew lives in a grotty flat on his own and he’s lonely. All day at work he’s dealing with what happens when people die without a next of kin, without family and he takes it upon himself to go to the funerals of people who would otherwise have no one present. I felt so sad for Andrew, it’s such a lonely life he leads and you realise that his job must impact on his loneliness.
Andrew loves Ella Fitzgerald’s music and spends a lot of his spare time listening to her but he has an overwhelming visceral response that he can’t control to one of her songs. I immediately realised what was wrong with Andrew but over the course of the novel we gradually find out about his past and learn more about how he has ended up the way he has.
Things begin to come unstuck for Andrew when his boss decides that his team needs to bond a bit more and suggests a Come Dine With Me idea whereby the whole team goes to a different team member’s house for dinner once a month. Andrew’s blood runs cold as he realises he has to get out of this or he’s going to be found out. The thought of just explaining how he got into living a lie isn’t something he can comprehend so his stress levels are rising. He then gets a new teammate, Peggy, and life begins to open up for Andrew in ways he couldn’t have imagined and the burden of his fictional family begins to overwhelm him.
Something To Live For also captures how much of our lives are now lived online. Andrew is part of an online community of train fans and he logs on every night to catch up, and yet he is so vulnerable and alone in reality. Social media can help make us feel less lonely but we still need people in our real lives in order to thrive. The book really shows how we can appear to have happy life but the reality can be so very different. More importantly though this book shows how if we take a step towards inviting people into our lives, asking for help when we need it, that the world can suddenly become a much bigger, brighter place and I loved this aspect of the novel.
This book is such a charming read; it’s very moving but also heart-warming and funny. I found Andrew to be such a believable character and I was rooting for him all the way through this book. It’s such an honest and sensitive portrayal of loneliness but it’s also a novel that is full of hope. The idea that if we can just be honest about our own lives, about the failures we perceive in ourselves that things really might get better. It left me with an overwhelming feeling that there is always hope, there is always a chance to change things. Life might not turn out as we planned but it’s still possible to find happiness down other avenues.
I adored Something To Live For, it’s one that will stay with me. It’s a wonderful thing for an author to make a reader feel real emotion at a character’s pain but in the next chapter have you laughing out loud at something. This is how life is and this gorgeous novel captures that in all its glory! I highly recommend this book!
Many thanks to the publisher for my copy of this book. All thoughts are my own.
Something To Live For is out now and available here.
You can find the rest of this tour at the following blogs:
RatherTooFondofBooks 