Review | Roar by Cecelia Ahern

Roar by Cecelia Ahern
Published On: November 1, 2018
Published By: Harper Collins
Genre: Adult, General Fiction, Anthology
Pages: 352
Format: eBook
Source: Netgalley
Rating: ★★★★
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I am woman. Hear me roar. 
Have you ever imagined a different life? 
Have you ever stood at a crossroads, undecided? 
Have you ever had a moment when you wanted to roar? 
The women in these startlingly original stories are all of us: the women who befriend us, the women who encourage us, the women who make us brave. 
From The Woman Who Slowly Disappeared to The Woman Who Was Kept on the Shelf and The Woman Who Returned and Exchanged her Husband, discover thirty touching, often hilarious, stories and meet thirty very different women. Each discovers her strength; each realizes she holds the power to make a change. Witty, tender, surprising, these keenly observed tales speak to us all, and capture the moment when we all want to roar.

*A copy of this book was provided by the published via Netgalley in exchange for an honest review.*

It is no secret that Cecelia Ahern is a favourite author of mine. In fact, I think I start every review of one of her books with that exact sentence. Of course, being one of my favourite authors, I was very excited to get to her newest release. I was unsure about the premise, but I trusted I would enjoy it as I have never not enjoyed a Cecelia Ahern book. 

This is unlike anything I have read before. It features thirty short stories, many only a few pages in length, each following an different woman. These stories take common issues and prejudices facing women in the world today and give them a fantastical twist by taking them very literally. For example, The Woman Who Had A Ticking Clock deals with the societal pressures on women over a certain age to have children and features a woman with a literal ticking clock. I found it incredibly clever and unique.

While I did enjoy this book and all of the stories within it, I didn't feel this was Cecelia Ahern's best writing. The stories were clever in content but the writing felt quite basic at times. I also found myself getting a little bored at times as the stories felt quite similar. However, these are my only complaints. I generally really enjoyed it and took a lot of great messages from the stories.

Overall, I think this is a very good collection of short stories. The stories are unique, I have never read anything like them before, and all contained an important message. I found this book to be quite powerful as a whole and I would definitely encourage you to pick it up if you want to feel good about being a woman, or if you want to look at current issues facing women but in a very different way.