Book 5: No Dress Rehearsal by Marian Keyes

It isn't quite fair for me to call this a book in my goal of 100 books this year because I am quite literate. But it is a great book for adults learning to read or with literacy issues. This is an Open Door book, which is a series of books started in Ireland a few years ago, aimed at adults learning to read. This has been a problem for quite a long time. What does the adult early reader read? Clifford the Big Red Dog is a little insulting when you are 37. This book is in the 2nd series of Open Door books, and is actually interesting book for an adult to read.

This book is written by one of my favourite chicklit authors, Marian Keyes, and it really does have her customary feel. It is only 76 pages, and doesn't have the vocabulary you might expect from one of her other novels but the writing feels the same. The main character, Lizzie, dies when she gets hit by a car while riding her bike home from work. Unfortunately, she doesn't know she is dead. She leads the kind of life that everyone ignoring her doesn't really shock her. Finally, her angel coordinators meet with her and convince her she is in fact dead. Lizzie then has one last chance to communicate some important life lessons to those she left behind.

This series has books written by Roddy Doyle, Maeve Binchy, Marian Keyes, Cathy Kelly and others. I know of another series like this, that also had a Maeve Binchy book but I can't remember the name of it. I got this book out of the library, not knowing it was aimed at early readers, just seeing the Marian Keyes name, but I'm glad I did. It is nice to know a little more about these books, and just how well they are written. And I'd like to thank Mrs. Cameron and Mrs. Durant and all those other awesome teachers in elementary school who helped me never actually need these books.