I'm going to be a little stricter with Bechdel this year though - I don't think this counts. Colour me unimpressed.Bechdel: I *think* there's a scene where Lou's wife tells their five-year-old daughter, who's busy puking her guts out, that everything's okay - but I'm not even sure if it's written as dialogue or, yet again, exposition. Just in case we didn't get the point, she spends the last ten pages ramming it home over and over. Keeping in mind that the plot isn't particularly original (except, perhaps, for the ending), and the whole thing leaves an aftertaste like rice rice cakes - bland Styrofoam.To top it all off, the author/narrator is incredibly patronising. The environment itself feels like a cliche from the 50s (or Germany in the 90s): the only women working in Lou's company are secretaries, and they sleep with their bosses.None of the other characters fare any better - they are all sketches and stock characters, one-dimensional cliches. Every time she attempts to describe Lou's work life, it ends up as a string of meaningless buzzwords - he might as well be negotiating the BlackBerry and closing the deal on the paperwork. Cecelia Ahern has clearly never worked in that kind of environment herself, and it shows. And yet I struggle, because he is simply play-acting at being a 'businessman'. I work in a business environment, I occasionally spend more time in the office than I should, there are months when my cat forgets what I smell like - I should be able to identify with this character. He is a workaholic who doesn't spend enough time with his family, and the book is supposed to show us how he realises what's really important in life before it's too late. Lou, the main character, is a 'businessman' who works for a 'development company'.

(A heart attack is not a Herzattacke, it's a Herzinfarkt, dammit!)The writing it heavy on exposition and full of similes which the author undoubtedly thinks are incredibly clever - she is wrong.The real trouble with the book, though, is the one-dimensionality of the characters. Picked up as a holiday read (hence also reading the German translation).Where to start? The translation is clumsy, full of half-English words and badly-translated idioms.

The Gift by Cecelia Ahern