Tamara's life is turned upside down after her millionaire father commits suicide when he is unable to pay his creditors. Forced to leave their 7, 000 square foot home complete with indoor/ outdoor pools and tennis courts and she and her mother move to a tiny hamlet far from the modern life of Dublin, staying with family in a 3-bedroom carriage house. Without her phone, Internet or cable TV for entertainment, Tamara begins to explore the grounds of the huge estate on which they are living. She makes friends with a small group of nuns living near the former chapel, and has an adventurous day with the young man who drives the local bookmobile. It's on this bus that she discovers a large leather-bound book that has a brass padlock and no title or author on the cover. Upon opening the book, she is disappointed to find that it's blank, but decides to start keeping a diary. When she opens the diary the next day, she discovers that overnight her first entry has been written, and it's in her own handwriting! The other strange thing is that the date is two days in the future, meaning that she is reading about the events of the day she is going to have. This magical book helps Tamara in her investigations into her family and the estate, as her aunt and uncle both behave most peculiarly, as if they are hiding things, and her mother has fallen into a deep mourning, staying in bed most of the day and barely eating. I would say the term "gothic" which was how one reviewer described it is very accurate. With suicide, killer fires, hidden disfigured people, poisoning, and Irish royalty The Book of Tomorrow has all the elements of a grand gothic soap opera. It kept my interest without making me want to flip to the end, and I stayed up too late just to finish because I just couldn't find a good stopping point. This first book of Cecelia's that I've ever read was Where Rainbows End and I absolutely adore it, or at least I was because that was about a year ago. Nevertheless, I picked up The Book of Tomorrow just a few days ago thinking that maybe it'll be as good but unfortunately, it did not live up to my expectations. I'll go ahead and skip the synopsis as I don't want to give out any spoilers to those who haven't read the book. What deserves the three stars I gave was Chapter Twenty-Five. Yes, just that one. Cecelia could have find a better way to approach this story. Everything was so jam-packed in that chapter and it made me went nuts. All in all, it was a mind-blowing story, still just Chapter Twenty-Five. Besides that, I'm impressed by the developing of characters in this book. I love love love all the characters but I was hoping there would be more to come for Marcus as if it was not because of him, Tamara wold never have landed her hands on the magic book I would like to called. Also, where the hell did that book came from? Can we get some explanations because as far as I know it just popped out of some random traveling library. I supposed the reason behind why the book is named "The Book of Tomorrow" is because of the book that Tamara had found in the traveling library. Somehow this book bears not much significance in the story that I thought it would. If Cecelia changed the story a bit here and there and boom! The story can still go on perfectly fine without the book. I do not like the idea of a book that tells you about tomorrow and blah blah blah. It does not make sense and I just think that the entire novel would have been better off without the divine magical book. In short, I don't feel that magic is needed to make this book better. Instead, this book would be a winner without the magic book.
What do You think about O Livro Do Amanhã (2000)?
Okay, I was really excited about this book. From the summary, it looked amazing. However. I was very disappointed. Not only did it take (literally)!100 pages for the plot to really start, but I felt like this book would only interest middle school girls. The main character was annoying, way too much narration in between interesting parts, and a lot of the plot went unexplained in the end. I think I would even go down to 1.5 stars if it were possible. The diary entries were extremely unrealistic, the personalities were cliche, and it seems as though the author was trying to make the magical plot seem more realistic by using trite writing techniques.What a let down!
—mchan
Nu mi-a plăcut personajul principal, uneori îmi venea să-i trag câteva palme - o fată cu un comportament nesuferit, făcând parte dintr-o familie stereotipică de bogătaşi (totuşi nimic nu e tras de păr, forțat). Restul romanului mi-a plăcut foarte mult. Acțiunea şi personajele sunt învăluite în mult mister. M-a făcut să plâng, să mă enervez, să mă tem şi în a doua seară n-am putut lăsa cartea din mână până n-am terminat-o!
—Bersi
It is more like 3.5 stars out of 5 because it was good but not fantastic.
—katie
