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    A Place Called Here
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    A Place Called Here
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    A Place Called Here
    Audiobook (abridged)6 hours

    A Place Called Here

    Written by Cecelia Ahern

    Narrated by Aoife McMahon and Aidan McArdle

    3.5/5

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    Unavailable in your country

    About this audiobook

    The magical new novel from the number 1 bestselling author of ‘PS, I Love You’ and ‘Where Rainbows End’.

    Sandy Shortt has been obsessed about where missing things – and people – end up ever since the disappearance of a childhood friend twenty years ago. It has even motivated her to become a private investigator, attempting to track down missing loved ones and giving devastated families hope.
    So when she finds herself one of the missing people, stuck in a strange place with people who vanished into thin air years ago, she wonders if she has found the answer to one of life's greatest mysteries. But if she has, will she be able to return to life as she knows it? If Jack Ruttle, her latest client and mystified by her own disappearance, has anything to do with it she will…

    LanguageEnglish
    PublisherHarperCollins
    Release dateJul 2, 2007
    ISBN9780007265442
    Unavailable
    A Place Called Here
    Author

    Cecelia Ahern

    Cecelia Ahern is the author of the international bestsellers PS, I Love You; Love, Rosie; If You Could See Me Now; There's No Place Like Here; Thanks for the Memories; The Gift; The Book of Tomorrow; and The Time of My Life. Her books are published in forty-six countries and have collectively sold more than sixteen million copies. The daughter of the former prime minister of Ireland, she lives in Dublin.

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    Reviews for A Place Called Here

    3.5/5

    49 ratings49 reviews

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    • 4/5
      I wanted to like this more than I did. Sandy is obsessed and it is hard to understand just how to feel about her. I liked Jack's story and character better.
    • 3/5
      This is the story of Sandy Shortt, who searches for missing persons and things ... and then goes missing herself. The story is told from Sandy's perspective with flashbacks to tell us about her childhood and background. We also learn about Sandy through a secondary storyline told by Jack, who hired Sandy to find his brother and who then goes looking for Sandy. I wasn't so much taken with the story of Sandy's going physically missing as I was with her going emotionally missing. Ever since childhood she had removed herself from ordinary human interaction and kept herself at a distance from other people. I felt bad for the people in her life who had to put up with her disappearances. Overall, it was an entertaining read but not something I couldn't put down. I actually enjoyed Jack's portion of the story a bit more than Sandy's. He seemed more "real" to me.
    • 4/5
      Inhaltsangabe:Im Alter von zehn Jahren machte Sandy Shortt die Erfahrung, das Menschen einfach verschwinden. Damals war es Jenny-May Butler, die als Kind plötzlich einfach vom Erdboden verschluckt war. Seither ist Sandy ständig auf der Suche, nach ihrem Lieblings-Teddy, Zahnbürste oder einzelnen Socken. Sie suchte stets so obszessiv, das ihre Eltern sie irgendwann zu Dr. Gregory Burton schickten.Selbst die Berufswahl diente ihrem zwanghaften Suchen: Sie wurde Polizistin und suchte in ihrer Freizeit vermisste Menschen. Später eröffnete sie eine eigene Agentur und im Rahmen dieser Tätigkeit sollte sie sich auf die Suche nach Donal Ruttle machen. Jack Ruttle, Donal’s Bruder, beauftragt Sandy mit der Suche nach seinem Bruder. Schon ein knappes Jahr ist er verschwunden und die Polizei hat die Suche bereits aufgegeben.Sandy joggt gerade, als sie sich plötzlich in einer anderen Welt befindet. Sie erkennt sehr schnell, sie ist im Land der verschwundenen Dinge – und Menschen. Es wird von den Menschen „hier“ genannt und doch hat Sandy das Gefühl, als gehöre sie dort nicht hin. Während Sandy im „hier“ ist, versucht Jack Ruttle nicht nur Donal zu finden, sondern auch Sandy. Denn er ist sich sicher, das ihr plötzliches Verschwinden nicht ihre freie Entscheidung war – trotz aller Behauptungen, die Sandy seit Jahren kennen.Mein Fazit:Was für ein Thema! Cecelia Ahern hat eine sehr schöne mystische Geschichte erzählt und dabei das Bild einer Frau gezeichnet, dessen Leben von ihrer Zwangsstörung geprägt ist. Sandy Shortt muss eigentlich immer suchen. Sobald sie etwas nicht finden kann, stellt sie alles auf den Kopf, um den vermissten Gegenstand zu finden. Obszessiv geht sie dem nach – ohne dabei Rücksicht auf die Gefühle anderer zu nehmen. Dr. Gregory Burton begleitet sie von ihrer Jugend bis in die Gegenwart und obwohl er Psychiater ist, kommt er mit damit schwer zurecht. Sie haben einander Gefühle investiert und doch können sie nicht ferner voneinander sein.Auch die Unfähigkeit, Beziehungen aufzubauen oder gar kreativ zu gestalten gehören zu diesem Bild dazu. Die Abneigung gegen Kinder runden das Bild ab. Und dann landet sie plötzlich in dem „hier“. Sie ist verwirrt, denn plötzlich wird sie mit der anderen Seite konfrontiert – der Seite hinter dem Suchen – nämlich dem Finden. Sie findet fast alle Menschen, die sie suchte. Sie muss sich mit Dingen auseinandersetzen, die sie vorher kategorisch abgelehnt hat. Doch dann passieren auch im „hier“ plötzlich seltsame Dinge: Es verschwinden Dinge aus dem „hier“. Die Gemeinde ist in großer Aufruhr. Jack Ruttle spielt dabei keine unwesentliche Rolle, denn er glaubt nicht an den Menschen, der ihm von Verwandten und Freunden über Sandy gezeichnet wird. Ich als Leserin konnte Sandy Shortt auch nicht unbedingt immer verstehen oder ihre Handlungen nachvollziehen, aber sehr schnell akzeptierte ich sie als Heldin, denn sie hat wahrlich ihre guten Seiten – das sie trotz aller Unkenrufe eben nicht so schnell aufgibt.Cecelia Ahern hat einen wunderbaren Roman geschaffen über das Suchen und Finden, über das Erkranken und Heilen und über die unergründliche Wege, wie ein Mensch zu sich selbst finden kann. Eine sehr vielschichtige Geschichte mit kleinen Längen zwischdurch, insgesamt ist der Roman aber glänzende vier Sterne wert.Veröffentlicht am 16.08.15!
    • 1/5
      I received a copy of this book as part of the Early Reviewers program, and i just couldn't get into it. Part of the reason might be that it was a departure from Ahern's usual romantic chick-lit fare...this fell more squarely into the fantasy genre. Moreover, I found the writing frustratingly hackneyed...when a child goes missing, she is described as a blonde, blue-eyed cherub. There was no imagination here. Even the title seems ripped off from The Wizard of Oz.
    • 3/5
      Ever since her classmate Jenny-May vanished when they were ten years old, Sandy Shortt has been obsessed with finding things.I have to say I was with all the excellent reviews that this author received on her first novel P.S I Love You Iwas a bit disappointed on how she swayed to her usual writing. I was expectingher usual chick-lit romance story although thought provoking it still sums as amagical, peter pan like story. Highly unbelievable to begin with but otherwise achallenging read.
    • 3/5
      There's No Place Like Here tells the story of Sandy Shortt, a woman who runs a missing persons agency and has a tendendy to go missing herself when friends and family get too close to her. When Sandy is 10 years old, a classmate disappears. Sandy then becomes obsessed with finding lost things, largely due to her own guilt since she "wished" her classmate away.While searching for a missing person, Sandy finds herself in the land called "Here" where all missing people and things go. Here is a complete functioning world where everyone has a role and all items are second-hand. The novel, therefore, contains an element of fantasy and you must be able to suspend your disbelief to enjoy the story.I found the concept of "Here" imaginative and intriguing. The author treats "Here" with just the right mix of seriousness and fairy tale to make the book enjoyable.The narrative voice alters between Sandy as she struggles to find her way out of Here, and in a series of flashbacks that explain Sandy's obsessions; interspersed with the voice of Jack Ruttle, one of Sandy's clients who is looking for his own lost brother, and for Sandy. Jack's own story of learning to let go of the past is every bit as moving as the main plot.A light read, well-written. Some funny scenes, perceptive treatment of obsessive-compulsive disorders. I recommend it.
    • 1/5
      ok, about a girl that gets lost while searching for missing peoples. She finds a world where all the missing things and people go. Kind of dumb. Listened on audio Aoife McMahon & Aidan Mcardle - ok
    • 4/5
      Well written with a balance of "stories", the merging of the storylines was very well done. It was a light read with lots of simple characters that were drawn nicely with broad strokes to reduce the complexity.

      I found it a lovely positive read and would recommend as a nice holiday read
    • 3/5
      I once read a description of Cecelia Ahern's books that said her fiction was akin to modern fairy tales for grownups. (As if regular fairy tales are solely the property of youngsters.) In a Q & A on her website, how Ahern addresses this is the perfect introduction into the premise of There's No Place Like Here: "My opinion of a fairy tale was of a story that lacked realism, in which female characters are "rescued" by men, whisked off their feet from the boredom of their mundane lives, proposed to, and brought to a castle where they would live happily ever after. This is not the case with my books. I want them to be about strong women. They are about real people with ordinary, everyday struggles who are faced with having to embark on a journey of self-discovery.As soon as my characters begin to grasp who they are, and how and why it is that they've reached this point in their lives, then they realize they must heal themselves. Self-healing is extremely important in my stories, and while there are strong male characters in the books, they aren't the handsome princes that have come to save the day. Their role is to help the characters help themselves. People learn about themselves through interaction and through their relationships with others; obviously nobody can do it alone, so the love interests are instrumental in helping the characters look at themselves and their own behavior but then eventually helping themselves.How a good fairy tale will make you feel after you've finished it is full of hope --- the hope that no matter what we're faced with, we can get through it. While the books don't always end on a "happily ever after" note, they do reach a point where they realize they have the strength, confidence, and ability to continue. And that is the modern twist." There's No Place Like Here fits that description admirably well. Ahern's fourth novel is the story of Sandy Shortt, the owner of a missing-persons agency in Ireland. Sandy's had an obsession with lost things ever since a neighbor (and childhood nemesis) disappeared when they were 10. As an adult, she pours herself into her work helping families of people who have gone missing and her workaholic tendencies of disapppearing for days at a time have cost her relationships with her parents and a love interest, the school counselor who helped her as a teenager.So when Sandy really does go missing, no one really notices or cares much - except Jack Ruttle, who has hired Sandy to find his missing brother, Donal. Convinced that she holds the keys to the answers he seeks, Jack embarks on a search for Sandy that brings him into contact with each person in Sandy's life.Similarly, Sandy is on her own journey of discovery, stumbling upon a world (not too far off from the one that we know) that simultaneously reunites and acquaints her with the very people she's spent her life looking for."It was a scene I was familiar yet unfamiliar with all at the same time because everything I could see was composed of recognizable elements from home, but used in such very different ways. We hadn't stepped backward or forward, we had entered a whole new time. A great big melting pot of nations, cultures, design, and sound mixed to create a new world. Children played; market stalls decorated the road and customers swarmed around them. So much color, so many new sounds, unlike any country I'd been in. A sign beside us said HERE." There's a mystical quality and a subtle religious element to There's No Place Like Here. For example, it's not much of a stretch to view Here as a symbolic interpretation of Heaven. (I mean, c'mon, one of the characters is a carpenter named Joseph.) Despite that, Ahern manages this aspect while avoiding becoming too heavy-handed."I'm very interested in the idea that we are not alone on this earth," she states on the interview posted on her website. "I write books about lives, and in our lives are men, women, children, animals, and the others we feel around us. I'm aware that many people are turned off when this subject is broached but it's as simple as when, after losing a loved one, people openly admit to feeling that their loved ones are still with them."The novel is told in flashbacks as well as in the present, and Ahern weaves these together very nicely. There are, however, some elements within the plot that don't quite get answered at the conclusion. We see a relationship developing between Sandy and her guidance counselor at school, which doesn't come into fruition until Sandy is an adult (thankfully), but the reader is left not quite knowing what happened with Sandy and Gregory in the middle. We can guess, which is perhaps what Ahern wants us to do.There's No Place Like Here, Ahern's fourth novel (I think), is the second one of hers that I've read and enjoyed. The first one that I read was If You Can See Me Now, which I loved. (Anyone who has been around a child with an imaginary playmate will never dismiss the notion of invisible friends again after reading that one). Both are highly recommended and make for light, entertaining reading while being thought-provoking and viewing this world in a different light. If you're looking for this type of read this summer, give Cecelia Ahern's books a try.My rating for There's No Place Like Here: 4 out of 5 stars (simply because I would have liked to have known a little more about the relationship between Sandy and Gregory!)
    • 4/5
      Cecilia Ahern is the author of the book P.S. I Love You, on which a recent movie was based -- apparently quite loosely. Her books are set in Ireland and some of them have a supernatural or fantasy element, for instance this one. Sandy Shortt is actually quite tall. Ever since a childhood classmate disappeared, she has been obsessive about trying to find anything that is lost, and ends up running a missing-persons agency. One day she ends up disappearing herself and finds herself in a mysterious place called "Here" where she finds her lost possessions and some of the missing persons she has sought. But will she ever get home? There is a subplot which caused me to list this in the mysteries shelf as well. Ms. Ahern, daughter of the Irish Prime Minister, is only 26 and is already quite an accomplished writer with a fertile imagination. I look forward to many more books from her.
    • 4/5
      This book was hard for me to really get into, but once I did, it was pretty good. Sandy Shortt becomes obsessed with all things that are lost. It didn't help that a girl she knew when they were 10 became lost/missing. She can't believe that most of the time, only one sock comes back from the laundry. Her family uses tape to hold stuff down, so it doesn't go missing. As an adult, she starts her own detective agency, where she looks for lost people. She's hot on the trail of a young man that has been missing a year (she has just taken the case). And, she takes a wrong turn & ends up HERE.Here is where all of the lost things end up. Mountains of socks, pens, and even people. She finds her old schoolmate & a lot of the other people that she's been searching for in the past. Sandy has many adventures and makes several new friends Here.But, then she is obsessing about just getting home. She doesn't like it Here.
    • 3/5
      A fantasy about a compulsive searcher for people and things who finally discovers where lost things end up. It's a bit short on depth and rather predictable, but fun nevertheless.
    • 5/5
      I loved this book! Cecelia Ahern took a common problem we all face and wrote a story that is not plausible, but fun and full of imagination.Sandy Shortt is a missing persons investigator, who ends up missing. Sandy is obsessed with finding anything of hers that is lost. She also has trouble letting go of cases where no one was found and no trace of what happened seems to exist. Sandy's obsession started when she was 10 years old and a classmate, Jenny-May Butler, who lived across the street, went missing. Sandy was the last person to see Jenny-May and there was no trace after that. Sandy began to furiously search for items she lost until she found them or realized an item wasn't going to be found. Sandy, now 34 years old, takes on the case of a missing man. En route to her first meeting with the man's brother she goes missing. What unfold's is an imaginative tale of where all the missing things go.I think I will now go through and look up Ms. Ahern's other books. I like her style of writing and her imagination. I hope you enjoy this as much as I.
    • 2/5
      The book is about Sandy Shortt who has an obsession with finding things. She spends her life looking for lost people. She used to work for the garda but now, runs her own private company. Her obsession started when her neighbour, Jenny May Butler, went missing when she was ten. Then Jack Ruttle appears, looking for his younger brother, Donal, who went missing the year before. He asks Sandy for help - and she agrees, but doesn't expect to become lost herself, stumbling upon a place where every missing thing seems to be, along with her own belongings from the past.

      In the book, all the lost things are described as unwanted things and all just left here.

      The book was titled "There's No Place Like Here" for release in the United States. "Here" refers to the name of the place where missing things, like Jenny-May Butler and Sandy Shortt, as well as objects end up.

      In the book, the characters put on a performance of The Wizard of Oz sans the musical component. In "Oz" Dorothy is transported home after repeating three times, "There's no place like home," hence, the spin on the title.
    • 4/5
      excellent to listen to in an Irish brogue. I don't know if it would have the same impact just reading it. I would definitely recommend the cd. Sandy Short looks for missing persons and becomes one.
    • 3/5
      I loved the fairytale quality of this story, and the dual storylines. This book is an easy read but entirely original (the main character runs a missing persons agency and suddenly finds herself in a place where all missing things end up - odd socks, lost suitcases - even people). I thought the build up of mystery surrounding the protagonist's sudden appearance in the village of Here was great, but was a little dissapointed with the resolution.
    • 4/5
      Ever since Sandy Shortt's classmate went missing Sandy has been obsessed with finding things. As an adult she runs a missing person agency. One day she goes missing. She finds her self in a place called "Here" where missing people, things, sounds and even smells go. The book goes between Sandy and Jack, who went to Sandy to find his missing brother Donal.I really enjoyed listening to this. I really liked Sandy. Sometimes I would get frustrated with the back and forth, just when one perspective gets interesting it switches to the other. But both sides kept my interest.I enjoyed the endingFavorite quotes:“At moments when life is at its worst there are two things that you can do: 1) break down, lose hope, and refuse to go on while lying facedown on the ground banging your fists and kicking your legs or 2) laugh”"That was the other thing I hated about kids; they always said the exact things that deep down you already knew, would never admit to, and most certainly never wanted to hear."
    • 3/5
      Lots of potential, but rather poorly executed...I really liked the idea of there being a place where things go when they're missing, and some of Ahern's ideas about how the place is run were quite intriguing. However, I found the main character frustrating - she was very unlikeable, and it was hard to tell why other characters liked her. She also suffers from obsessive-compulsive disorder, and I really didn't like how Ahern handled the disorder - she doesn't seem to know much about OCD or what goes on in the minds of those who suffer from it. I found the personal relationships in the story sappy and rather unbelievable, and the storyline was painfully predictable. The book is designed to be light reading, but I found it frustratingly light.
    • 4/5
      Private investigator Sandy has spent her entire life obsessed with things that are lost, from misplaced keys to vanished people. She hasn't been able to forge successful relationships, and she has a reputation for being batty and absent-minded, but she's beloved for her tenacity and sympathy by the families who hire her to seek out their missing loved ones. On a quest for a missing young man named Donal, city vanishes herself, and finds herself in the land of the lost. An almost utopian society has built up in this land of the vanished, where the residents want for nothing because their society is daily pre-populated with lost socks, watches, books, and the like. (I couldn't help but think of Tumbolia, the land that according to Douglas Hofstadter's _Godel, Escher, Bach_ is the home of all lost socks, and which is illustrated by the Escher print of tessellated salamanders crawling out of an illustration.)Sandy's story grew on me slowly. Much of the story is told in the first person by Sandy herself, and she remained opaque to me throughout her narrative. Many of the characters are placeholders, without any richness to their own development. And yet the interleaving of fantasy and reality, the very matter of fact behavior of the Lost, the strange logic to this fantasy world, all grew more and more compelling until by the novel's end I was thoroughly drawn in.
    • 2/5
      Really did not like this book.Started out promising - Sandy Shortt (haha, she is 6' tall) is scared from an experience when she was 10 yrs old - the girl across the street who used to torture her - disappears. She thinks she is responsible - because she "wished her away."Sandy may or may not have OCD, however, she cannot deal with things or people that are missing.And then she discovers this magical place - HERE - where all the missing things go.
    • 4/5
      There's No Place Like Here was really entertaining. I thought it was a novel idea (pardon the pun) that was well developed, but got a little stale and hackneyed towards the end as it became to self-referential. I mean, we get that it's a take-off on the whole Alice in Wonderland/Wizard of Oz alternate universe kind of thing, you don't have to serve it to us on a platter. I think more restraint would have preserved the engaging effect of the magical plot. I hope it doesn't sound like I didn't like the book; I read it in less than a day (usually I get too distracted and busy to finish a book in less than a month at the least).The book hits just the right emotional tone and had me rooting for the main characters to find resolution, self-recognition, and happiness. Ahern does a commendable job of extending the tension without being torturous. However, she seems to have developed a habit of building a crescendo, raising the tension, making the reader aware that something big is about to happen (and sometimes it does in a vague kind of way), and then suddenly shift perspective to a new chapter, picking up the other character's plot line. It got kind of annoying after a while. Despite the annoying blips, overall, it covered new literary ground for me. I especially like the treatment of psychology and therapy. I just finished a semester of professional ethics (I'm studying clinical psychology) and couldn't help but be overly attuned to the dynamics and ethical gray (and not so gray) areas of psychological practice revealed.The author blurb noted that Ahern is the daughter of Ireland's prime minister. An interesting fact, but I'd like to either know more about why that's important to me as a reader or to be ignorant of it- is she just showing off her heritage?Lastly, I was a joy for me to experience life through the words and thoughts of Ireland- understandable to a Yank, but just off enough that I feel I'm traveling another world.
    • 2/5
      Meh. It so wanted to be a wonderful book. It had all the right ingredients: re-worked childhood tale (The Wizard of Oz, for those who didn't get it from the blurb), dash of romance, touch of fantasy, answered mysteries, etc. But the execution fails.The writing is, at best, banal and predictable. The characters are interesting, and occasionally Ahern seems like she's about to truly develop them, but she always seems to just miss the mark. The plot... Well, it's ambitious, with the constant scene switches between time periods and our two main protagonists, but it fails to successfully pull the reader seamlessly from place to place.This is a fun, quick read if you're looking for something that will engage your brain in brief moments; but overall, it's not much more than brain-candy. The blurb was much more interesting than the actual book.
    • 4/5
      Ever since Sandy Shortt's classmate disappeared years ago she's been obsessed with lost people and things. She even joined the missing people squad in the Gardai. Now she has her own company to hunt down missing people but she's still obsessed by missing things as well as people.When she finds herself where the missing things and people go she becomes the subject of a search herself, while she hunts for a way out. Jack Ruttle is looking for his brother Donal who vanished into thin air a year ago. His investigation into his brother's disappearance complicates when he hires Sandy and she goes missing too.Light and fun this is a easy read, although it is a bit fantastic Ahern manages to keep a light touch. Nothing over complicated and the characters are well drawn. Ahern seems to have found her niche and is using it well.
    • 5/5
      This novel is a stunning visualization of a world gone awry, and with only your own sanity to hold to you may not know what's up from what's down. It is a heartwarming tale I encourage everyone to try out.
    • 4/5
      What if you found the place where all missing things and people go? What if you found yourself there? Embrace the fantastical realism in this intriguing novel. It is original and charming. I loved it.
    • 2/5
      While this was a light and enjoyable story, for me the characters and plot just weren't deep enough to hold my attention. The ideas behind the story were interesting (Sandy's quest for lost people and possessions) but weren't developed enough to be believable.
    • 3/5
      The whole concept of this book was really intriguing, but unfortunately I felt that it fell really flat. The missing persons person going missing and finding everything that she had spent her life looking for was fascinating, but it just didn't grab me the way I wanted it to.
    • 3/5
      A bit disheartening and somehow gloomy for me, but I Enjoyed it.
    • 2/5
      I can't believe I kept making myself read this. It was very slow going but I loved the premise and just wanted to get to the end and find out what "here" was all about. Stupid Erika.
    • 3/5
      This story is about Sandy Shortt, a woman obsessed with the missing; personal articles and people. Her obsession started with the disapearance of her classmate at the age of ten. Sandy lives her life as an investigator searching for the missing which allowes her to ignore most other aspects of her life such as her true love and her parents, who are patiently hoping for her to resolve her obsessions. Sandy finds herself transported to Here, the place that all missing things and people go. She gets to know many of the people that she has heard about or had searched for and she also finds all the personal things that have been missing. I liked the overall idea of Here and that all missing things have to go somewhere but I didn't like how the story was all wrapped up with a pretty little bow at the end. Every problem in her life is solved and all of her anxieties are relieved because of her "trip' to Here. When I first started reading I could actually see this book being made into a movie but the ending ruined it for me. This is the first book that I have read of Cecilia Ahern and I will recomend it to my friends. I liked how she developed her characters and her plot even if I didn't like the ending of the story.