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There's No Place Like Here | 
 enlarge | Author: Cecelia Ahern
Publisher: Hyperion
Category: Book
List Price: $24.95
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Rating:  23 reviews
Sales Rank: 116012
Media: Hardcover
Number Of Items: 1
Pages: 352
Shipping Weight (lbs): 1.3
Dimensions (in): 9.3 x 6.1 x 1.1
ISBN: 1401301886
Dewey Decimal Number: 823.92
EAN: 9781401301880
ASIN: 1401301886
Publication Date: January 1, 2008
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Amazon.com Review
Acclaimed novelist Cecelia Ahern's There's No Place Like Here tells the story of Sandy Shortt, an obsessive-compulsive Missing Persons investigator who suddenly finds herself in the mystical land of the missing, desperate to return to the people and places from whom she has spent her life escaping. With this imaginative fourth novel, Ahern, whose P.S. I Love You was made into a major motion picture, continues to establish herself as not only an icon of Irish chick lit, but also a bold and creative thinker. Continuing the whimsical trend she started with If You Could See Me Now, Ahern asks readers to step outside the boundaries of reality, and enter a world where missing people (and possessions) from all over the globe congregate to start anew. When Sandy goes on an early morning jog and strays too far into the forest, she too finds herself "Here," the aptly named home of the missing. In addition to finding her lost socks, diaries, and stuffed animals, she also finds many of the people she has searched for throughout her career. From Bobby Stanley, who disappeared from his mother's house at the age of sixteen, to Terrence O'Malley, a librarian who disappeared on his way home from work at age 55, Sandy is quickly reunited with the people she has come to know only through photos and heartbreaking memories shared by devastated loved ones who enlisted her services. Of course, finding these people and possessions only makes Sandy realize how much she has missed out on in her real life, most notably her concerned parents and her on again off again boyfriend Greg. There's No Place Like Here is often predictable and the premise is a bit hard to swallow at times. Still, readers who take the leap will be rewarded with what is ultimately a witty, compassionate, and captivating love story. --Gisele Toueg
Product Description
Sometimes it takes losing everything to truly find yourself... Since Sandy Shortt's childhood classmate disappeared twenty years ago, Sandy has been obsessed with missing things. Finding what is lost becomes her single-minded goal--from the lone sock that vanishes in the washing machine to the car keys she misplaced. It's no surprise, then, that Sandy's life's work becomes finding people who have vanished from their loved ones. Sandy's family is baffled and concerned by her increasing preoccupation. Her parents can't understand her compulsion, and she pushes them away further by losing herself in the work of tracking down these missing people. She gives up her life in order to offer a flicker of hope to devastated families...and escape the disappointments of her own. Jack Ruttle is one of those devastated people. It's been a year since his brother Donal vanished into thin air, and he has enlisted Sandy Shortt to find him. But before she is able to offer Jack the information he so desperately needs, Sandy goes missing too...and Jack now finds himself searching for his brother and the one woman who understood his pain. One minute Sandy is jogging through the park, the next, she can't figure out where she is. The path is obscured. Nothing is familiar. A clearing up ahead reveals a camp site, and it's there that Sandy discovers the impossible: she has inadvertently stumbled upon the place-- and people--she's been looking for all her life, a land where all the missing people go. A world away from her loved ones and the home she ran from for so long, Sandy soon resorts to her old habit again, searching. Though this time, she is desperately trying to find her way home...
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| Customer Reviews: Read 18 more reviews...
 A Great First Impression of the Author October 4, 2008
This is the first of Ahern's books I have read. For me, as with many people, the reading of one book will either create a desire to read additional stories written by the author, or can generate a dissatisfied attitude towards that author's work, which results in no further readings of that particular author.
So here's the question: Would I read more of Ahern's books based off my first impression of the work she creates? Absolutely!
In this story, There's No Place Like Here, we are introduced to a character, Sandy Shortt, who is dominated by her quirks. The people in Sandy's life have become accustomed to her obsessive need to search for missing items and her withdrawal from the people living around her. Her obsession with finding the lost leads her on her own personal journey that provides her with an opportunity to confront many of the questions that have consumed her thoughts and her mind for many of her living years. How to use these answers to confront her idiosyncrasies is the question she is left to address.
This is a story that will leave a lasting impression of a world unknown.
 I couldn't finish it... September 26, 2008
0 out of 1 found this review helpful
It's almost painful for me to put a book down and never finish it, but that's exactly what happened with this one. The story line is weak at best and seems to go nowhere. The character's seem shallow and unbelievable; I found myself not caring about what happened or didn't happen.
This was the first book I'd tried by Ahern. I don't know that I'm willing to try another one.
 I absolutely loved it! August 8, 2008
1 out of 1 found this review helpful
This is the third book I have read by Cecilia Ahern and I am in awe that such depth, creativity, and mature insight can come from someone so young. It appears to me that several of the previous reviewers have missed much of the point of this book.
This book was not just a fantasy about a magical land where lost things and people reside. It is about the very deep and complex emotions of grief, love and guilt. It is about choosing either to survive or fade away in despair. It is about following your heart when the rest of the world says you're wrong, a fool, or just plain crazy. It is about murder, betrayal and healing.
Just like in P.S. I Love You, this book deals with the grief of losing a loved one but it goes deeper. It's not just the loss that causes the characters to suffer, it's the not-knowing what happened or where they are. Previous reviewers seem to have missed the whole story lines about Donal, Bobby, and Jenny-May and the effects their disappearances had on their loved ones. The never-ending grief of those who could not move on with their lives without knowing if their loved ones were dead or alive; of being afraid to move from a house, take a vacation, or even turn off a porch light for fear they would miss their return. It was about the feelings of isolation and abandonment those grieving people feel when they see the rest of their families picking up the pieces, giving up the search, and going on with their lives while they are left to suffer alone. It was about how such tragic events can sometimes bring a family closer together and other times totally rip it apart, no matter how loving and supportive everyone tries to be.
That someone as young as Ahern could recognize, analyze and describe those deep dark emotions and make them come alive in an uplifting story is amazing to me. Ahern made it work in P.S. I Love You and she made it work here.
For the emotion of love, Ahern shows how suffering through such a tragedy can destroy even the most stable and loving relationship. In regard to Jack's personal life, he loves Gloria, doesn't he? They've dreamed of a house and children. Gloria's been supportive and understanding through it all, made no demands, never questioned his actions, never rushed him. Why doesn't Jack feel anything toward her anymore? Is he trying to drive her away? Jack doesn't know himself . . . but apparently Ahern does, and again, for someone so young, I find that amazing.
The story also shows the adverse effects a hostile environment and the emotion of guilt can have on a developing child because, after all, this is the life story of Sandy Shortt.
Sandy had psychological problems (obsessive/compulsive and insomnia) and had been seeing a counselor from the time she was 14 years old. Her problems started when she was 10 years old and her classmate, Jenny-May Butler (who did everything she could to make Sandy's life miserable) disappeared just a few hours after Sandy had wished for just that very thing. After Jenny-May's disappearance, Sandy began questioning everything, no matter how minor and would repeatedly tear her parents' house apart looking for missing things as insignificant as one sock or a roll of Scotch tape.
I find it interesting that some reviewers say the premise of a place where missing people and things reside is too far-fetched or ridiculous and then say they were disappointed in the ending because they expected Sandy to bring everyone back. Just how far-fetched would that have been?
Another reviewer comments that "being missing without anyone missing you" is "just plain weird" as she states in her title line. I guess that reader never heard the story about the boy who cried wolf because that is exactly what Sandy Shortt was. As stated before, Sandy was in therapy since childhood. As an adult, she had very serious commitment issues, so bad that she always left her purse or luggage by the door anywhere she was visiting so she could make a quick get-away. Every time she began to feel trapped in a place or in a relationship she would take off, often being gone for several days. That's why those who were closest to her didn't sound any alarms. They missed her but just expected her to return.
Also, I disagree with the reviewers who say the ending was too abrupt. The clues were to be found in the land of Here if those reviewers had read carefully rather than just skimming through as they admitted. Sandy was not the first person to arrive at Here and then disappear again later . . . alone. The governing body gives conflicting stories to explain those disappearances and it is demonstrated that they are willing to lie to cover up any evidence that might lead to false hope or hysteria by those people who feel trapped in Here.
I loved a particular passage in the book where Sandy was questioning the existence of this amazing society she had stumbled upon. It was the question they say all people and all religions attempt to answer. Why are we here? In the book, Sandy asks:
"Was it an accident that we were all here? Did we stumble upon a blip in the earth's creation, a black hole on the surface, or was this just a part of life that remained unspoken throughout the centuries? Were we lost and unaccounted for, or was this where we truly belonged and our normal lives the original error? Was this a place for those who felt like outsiders in life to belong, to finally feel relief?"
To me, for a young person Ahern's age to ask those questions, that is pretty deep.
And finally . . . the book was also about murder and betrayal. All previous reviewers seemed to miss that point!
Fantasy or a dream? July 27, 2008
1 out of 1 found this review helpful
When Sandy Shortt, a finder of lost persons and obsessed with lost items, goes missing herself, the reader doesn't know if one is reading a fantasy book or a dream of the lost Sandy. This is the first book that I have read by this author and I felt like I happened upon a jewel. The weaving of the psychology of people who are consumed with anything that is lost and the stories of people who are lost and want to be found but make a good life for themselves in the land of the lost is fascinating. The moral that real relationships are more valuable than keeping all in order rings true. Many characters are well developed and come alive during the telling of the story. Highly recommended.
Here and back July 16, 2008
5 out of 6 found this review helpful
There's No Place Like Here - and Here's exactly where Sandy Shortt finds herself when she takes a side path while jogging. Sandy's an interesting individual - obsessive about finding lost things, whether they be socks, toys, pens, or people. She has turned her obsession into a career, running an agency for finding missing persons. And find some of them she does, in some most unusual ways and places. This novel is strongly reminiscent, of course, of The Wizard of Oz, but also of a newer book, The Five People You Meet in Heaven. A blend of reality and, well, unreality (not exactly fantasy), it's a modern, intriguing treatment of the timeless themes of loss, love, guilt, recovery, and fidelity. Fresh and thought provoking, and IMO, not chick lit.
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