Really beautiful book, simply delightful to read.

Alice has come back to the family home, which doesn’t feel like home to see her father who has only a short time to live. Daniel a homeless man walks London searching for his daughter he’s never met and picks up rubbish but sees colours and meaning behind the everyday things people discard. Alice and Daniels paths cross and the book alternates between their stories narrated by them and with a list of ten things connected to that chapter. I liked this concept and it worked really well, it made me feel connected to the characters story. I have to say the author writes so sensitively about loss and grief it really struck a cord with me and believable with how the characters were feeling and coping in their situation. It also makes you think that everyone has a story and that to think about the person on the street had a life once like us all and deserves to be treated with respect and sympathy. A book well worth a read to makes connect again with our own humanity.

Would have liked to give this 3.5 stars. There are two alternating 1st person narrators in this book. The first, a young woman named Alice, is fairly engaging, although trapped inside a hackneyed plot device: having to return home because of a dying parent. The second narrator takes a lot longer to get a bead on, and I would have liked to get a sense of his importance to the story earlier on. For quite a while I felt as if those alternating chapters were just sort of drifting. Halfway through, though, things started to make sense, and I found that narrator, Daniel, more engaging. Overall, a well-written novel, with engaging characters and a nuanced view of families, obligation, and the ways in which our failure to come to terms with life's disappointments affects those around us.

To say that I loved ‘Ten things I’ve Learnt About Love’ by Sarah Butler would be an understatement. Yes, I loved it but I also felt that I have lived that book, that life, those choices and those regrets.
I checked out the book because I liked the cover. It is styled as a list and even though I am not a person who makes lists, but I am drawn to them so I picked up the book. The two protagonists – Daniel and Alice – are both lost and looking for something. Alice has returned to London just in time to say good bye to her dying father and Daniel is a man looking for a daughter he’s never met. Every chapter is alternately narrated by Alice and Daniel and starts with a list of ten things which tells us a lot about the characters. It is also my favourite part of the book. I think it helps if we make lists – even if we just want to share them with a shrink.

Reading it was not only emotional but also personal. Let me admit that there are way too many similarities between me and one of the protagonists of the book Alice, for me to feel even remotely neutral about the book. We both lost our mothers when we were very young and then lost our dads at about the same age. We both were youngest daughters and have this weird love hate relationship with our elder sisters. Just like Alice, I too had to sort my dad’s house after his death and then had to put it up on sale. Doing that in a grievous state is perhaps the single most difficult thing that I ever had to do so while I was reading it, I was reliving that time of my life.

I too lost the only home I knew with Dad’s death. It made me reassess my relationship with everything – my work, the rest of the family, my city because when you lose that one anchor that has kept you connected with the rest of the things in your life, you are lost and would be floundering and grappling with the very idea of a home and a sense of belonging. This book is all about that.

It is beautifully written poignant tale where you need to take time between chapters to think and contemplate and ask questions. The characters are not nice nor are they black and white – they are real – like most of us with a bit of good, a bit of bad and a sprinkling of oddities that makes us human and fallible. It’s a sad book yet it still is infused with hope. It is about affection and human connection, about identity that we attach to persons and home and about the hunt for something to hold on to.

It’s a love story but not a typical one. It’s a love story where you both wonder and search for something at the same time. It is also an ode to the city of London which is perhaps the most engaging character of the book.

I am giving this book a solid five star recommendation; readers who want everything spelled out would perhaps give it a two. Other readers may not feel the same connection with the book that I did because Alice and Daniel are not the most likeable characters out there, and you may not feel the same way about London as I do, but I would still like you to give it a try. It’s a great read for self reflection.

http://tazeen.net/2013/09/18/ten-things-ive-learnt-about-love/

In alternating chapters, readers meet Alice and Daniel, two seemingly unconnected characters in London, going about their lives each with a fair share of pain at the losses they've suffered and the places they each find themselves at the moment, on the precipice of even more potential or probable loss. Each in his/her own way, the characters of Alice and Daniel are easy to sympathize with, and also easy to question-- how did they get to these points in their lives? But sympathy and empathy will likely win out for most readers, as they learn more about their plights. I became quite wrapped up in Daniel's quest, hopeful for him, and eventually sad but understanding about his actions in the end. The lists that comprise the chapter openings give bullet-pointed tidbits of insight into each character's mindset at that juncture, and are a unique and interesting way to convey this in a novel.

Charming, sad, oftentimes poignant. Your thinking chick lit book.

The story is told in two voices. Alice shares how she never truly felt a closeness with her father, up until the day she lost him to cancer.

Daniel is a homeless man roaming the streets of London, searching for his daughter, trying to make things right by finally working up the courage to introduce himself, now that she's lost the father that she grew up knowing.

The ending could have been different. I can think of a couple of possible endings. It just didn't leave me with that satisfied feeling that I would normally get after finishing a book. But that's just me.

I enjoy books that are told from multiple perspectives, which is one of the reasons I picked up this title. This is certainly no romance and as a reader, the secret for the story is revealed fairly early, but I kept reading anyway to see how it all ended up and fit together. The ending wasn't what I expected, but I did enjoy the story nonetheless.

Especially loved the descriptions of London. Beautifully written.

An unusual read, I loved the first person narrative that switched between the two main characters, letting the reader inside their innermost thoughts. The interspersed lists of ten were also an interesting touch. I had never come across synesthesia before so I found that very intriguing (and confusing to begin with, not realising it was actually a thing!)
Having just finished reading this, I'm not quite sure how I feel about it however. So many unanswered questions. Whilst it is definitely a novel that will stay with me, I found the end deeply unsatisfying. Like an inferior firework. All that amazing build-up then pffffttt... Hmmm. Not that I need every loose end wrapped up in a story but I was definitely left wanting more here.

A surprisingly good book, was put off a little by title but after the first 50 pages I was hooked.