As I kept reading The Marble Collector by Cecelia Ahern, I realized by the 10th chapter how excited I was to just finish this boring book quickly so I can be done with it and start reading something better. By the time I knew this book was bound to throw me into a reading slump by being so bland, it was too late – I was already buddy reading it with my friend and had already wasted 2 weeks of my time.

This book was about a man named Fergus who had a peculiar obsession towards collecting marbles. Even after living his whole childhood in an open environment with big mouthed siblings, he was unable to talk about this simple passion towards collecting marbles with his wife and daughter in fear of being laughed at and judged, so the whole story practically revolved around his mistakes. He somehow even managed to blame his passion of collecting marbles into being the main reason for cheating on his wife.

I had my mind open to hear his explanations throughout the book, but I got none. The author’s previous books had a lot more depth and emotions in them, but this lacked so much of them. I did not enjoy the story, nor could I connect to any of the characters. The only character I liked was Hamish, and even he wasn’t around much. The concept was good, but the writing wasn’t.

I would need to read another book ASAP to get rid of the tart taste this book left within my mouth and brain. As I’m writing this, I still can’t believe that I couldn’t like a Cecelia Ahern book. All her works always had such interesting stories in them, and they always had unusual hints of magic, it’s what made me love her previous books so much. This book didn’t have any of that. Don’t think I’m not open to diversifications; the story just needed to be written with conviction to be liked by me.


This book had too much of reality inside it to be considered fiction, if you’re someone who looks forward to some spice or magic in your books, this isn’t for you. 2/5 stars.