One Hundred Names: A Novel by Cecelia Ahern

What is it that makes us each unique? For Kitty Logan, it's her missteps, particularly the huge one she made which has effectively ended her career as a television journalist. While licking her wounds, she finds herself at the bedside of her terminally ill friend, mentor, and editor of the magazine that launched her journalistic career. There the question is launched: what was the one story you would write that you haven't yet written? The answer Kitty receives lies in a folder tucked in folder -- a legacy from her mentor: a list of 100 names. But can she fulfill the legacy? Can she find what links these people on this particular list; find what makes them the final story?

At first, for me, bogged down in Kitty's selfishness and the mess she created for herself by not having true journalistic integrity, slowed the story down. But as she begins to seek out the people on the list to interview them, as she begins to see the world from a different perspective, not an ego-centric one, my interest quickened. The characters I met through Ahern, the view of Ireland, the backgrounds of the individuals, were all intriguing. I've often thought that even the person who may on first glance be boring or uninteresting has a story to tell. It just may take special eyes to see it. Luckily, for the reader, Kitty learns to see the world with new eyes, and Ahern has the skill to tell the tale.

Many thanks to the kind folks at LibraryThing, and to the publisher, for sending this copy of the book for me to read as my first book of 2014.