“This entire exercise was stupid.” Never truer words spoken

17 year old Ginny receives a package of envelopes from her estranged Aunt Peg, the first letter instructing her to get on a plane to London and to not read any of the other letters until she has completed the task set in the previous one. Peg has set up an account for her that will (supposedly) cover all the crazy antics she has planned for her niece over the summer. In London, Ginny stays with Peg’s friend Richard, befriends an artist called Keith, and then goes on a quest around Europe, each step guided by Peg’s letters.

There will be spoilers from here on in.

Because hey, guess what? Aunt Peg is dead! She left the US without a word and went to Europe, on the very same path she’s sending Ginny on, and then got a brain tumour and died. Before dying she left all this for Ginny to do, for reasons I have not been able to ascertain. I mean, Ginny is terribly sheltered and quiet and not remotely daring, so it’s a nudge to get her out of her comfort zone. But a trip halfway across the world, alone, is a pretty big nudge. And let’s talk about that, and how I do not believe for one second that her parents would be ok with this. There’s a sentence about how it took a lot of persuading and then that’s it. She’s on the plane and we never meet her parents or hear about them again. Peg’s instructions include no electronic devices and no contact with back home but come on! What parent is going to agree to that? Surely she can at least let them know she got there ok? Check in every now and then so they don’t lose their minds. This is a girl who spends half an hour examining a washing machine before realising it isn’t an odd looking oven. Who let her get on a plane??

And as a character she’s not that much fun to spend time with. She doesn’t seem to have much personality at all, and she’s unbelievably passive. She follows Peg’s instructions without seeming to think about any consequences (following a stranger home in Italy and having to fight off his advances for starters), or attempting to plan for contingencies. She spends days with a family called the Knapps in…Copenhagen? It doesn’t matter. The quest she’s supposed to do there doesn’t pan out and yet she hangs about going on bike rides and sight seeing tours with a family that sort of adopt her, even though she doesn’t enjoy any of it. And then she’s given an itemised bill at the end for her share of the costs. Which funnily enough weren’t budgeted for by Aunt Peg when she put money aside for this.

Ginny asks nobody any questions about themselves, she doesn’t seem interested at all. Her aunt lived with Richard, he knew her in her final days, yet Ginny doesn’t talk to him about her. Oh and when her bag is stolen in Greece she calls Richard and heads back to London, leaving behind a group of new friends who had followed her after learning about her aunt’s letters. A girl in the group also had her bag stolen and lost everything, including her passport, but Ginny doesn’t offer to help or stay or even really commiserate. She just high tails it back to England. See ya! She’s kind of awful.

The romance is also a damp squib. I don’t know why she likes Keith, except that he’s male and talks to her. They don’t seem to have any chemistry and other than events constantly throwing them together they don’t seem to have anything in common. It just seemed pointless. That’s probably how I’d sum up the book. It feels like nothing happens, even though she goes all over Europe on an adventure. It’s all so mundane and then it’s over and I don’t know why Peg sent her on it in the first place, except to follow in her footsteps. And?

Look Ginny, tell the ghost of your aunt to eff off and throw those envelopes in the bin. Do what you want to do! She didn’t even know you! She hadn’t been in your life properly for ages! And now she’s sending you on a bizarre ‘quest’ and to what end? To broaden your horizons? And while I’ll be the first to admit Ginny could do with getting out a bit more (my god how many times can someone braid their hair?) it should be on her terms and going where she wants to go. Instead she’s left to sort of validate Peg’s existence.

And just some petty issues I had. Ginny. Keith. Peg. Miriam. They sound like characters out of a Famous Five novel rather than contemporary literature. This was published in 2005, it’s not that long ago. The only Keiths I know are old Yorkshire men. And Keith Chegwin. It’s just not a sexy name for a love interest. Also twice Leicester Square is spelled Leister and as someone who lived in London for over a decade that’s just painful.

There is a sequel because the last letter is lost, but I won’t be reading it.