To the Moon and Back by Jill Mansell

When Ellie Kendall tragically loses her husband she feels her life is over. But eventually she’s ready for a new start — at work, that is. She doesn’t need a new man when she has a certain secret visitor to keep her company…

Zack McLaren seems to have it all, but the girl he can’t stop thinking about won’t give him a second glance. If only she’d pay him the same attention she lavishes on his dog.

Moving to North London, Ellie meets neighbour Roo who has a secret of her own. Can the girls sort out their lives? Guilt is a powerful emotion, but a lot can happen in a year in Primrose Hill…

First published: 2011

After having read everything I had to read for my contemporary literature course, I needed some fluff. Something light, funny and possibly romantic. Don’t get me wrong, I really enjoyed this course, but I just really craved some chick lit, and I’m not ashamed to say it. Back at my parents’ place I’ve got almost a shelf’s worth of Jill Mansell novels (I think I’ve got ten in total over there — but they’re all Dutch translations, unfortunately) but I hadn’t read any for a couple of years. I bought To the Moon and Back when I was on holiday in England in the summer of 2011 but never got round to reading it.

I thoroughly enjoyed reading To the Moon and Back; as always Jill Mansell’s writing style is just wonderful; I wanted to keep on reading and reading. Of course the ending was rather predictable (the boy and girl get together and are oh so happy — no, this isn’t a spoiler, you all know it’ll happen!) but that didn’t matter one bit. Even though you know they will, you still have that “will they, won’t they” feeling while reading it.

The fact that the novel is set in London also helped a lot. I visited London (for the second time) in the summer of 2013 and I’m getting more and more eager to go back once more — I just fell in love with it, as I did with the protagonist of this novel, Ellie. She’s lost her husband and it’s quite heartbreaking to read about her grief and the way she misses him. It was really interesting to read how she got more and more back into “normal life”, including falling in love again. It progressed really nicely throughout the novel. However, the novel did not completely focus on her grief, but also showed the cheerful and witty Ellie, which was nice (and realistic).

To the Moon and Back is a wonderful read which’ll make you laugh out loud and leave you happy and cosy and warm. I definitely recommend reading it to anyone who just wants to sit back, relax and feel good.

Tara at The Librarian Who Doesn’t Say Shhh! wrote a really interesting post on “instalove”, which I think is quite applicable to some aspects of this novel, and chick lit in general, as well, so I’m just going to leave a link to it right here!