I've neglected this blog a lot. Not on purpose, but things changed, my plans got skewed, I suddenly found myself without a plan, and then with a new plan, and I've been off learning new skills and studying new things meaning that I haven't had as much time to read as I would have liked. However I've just finished a book which snapped me very quickly back into reading at any moment I can, whether it be on the train, on the tube, in a Starbucks killing a spare 20 minutes or huddled up in bed after a long day travelling.
I picked up "Who is Tom Ditto?" by Danny Wallace in a Waterstones on Oxford Street totally randomly. It was there in the recommended books, and I hadn't read anything for a while, and it didn't look too big and there were lots of questions in the blurb that I wanted to know the answers to. Simple really. I had no idea that I'd love the book as much as I did and that I'd get as quickly lost in the book as I did.
In summary the book is about an average guy named Tom who works as a newsreader for a London radio station, and his journey to discover where his girlfriend had disappeared to. Hayley, Tom's girlfriend leaves him, but leaves a note telling him to carry on as normal. After doing his own research Tom soon finds himself at an unusual meeting and later on encounters a strange girl named Pia. As the book progresses we see the relationship between Tom and Pia develop from an uneasy stranger following into a real friendship built around Pia's efforts to comfort and help Tom get over his missing girlfriend.
Without giving too much away about the content of the book, I feel like I should mention that it covers the subject of "copying" or "following" by having it as one of the key themes. At first when the topic arose in the book, I, like 'Tom' thought it was an absolutely ridiculous idea. However the more I read the book the more I found myself growing more and more curious about strangers around me, and what lives they are living. It's weird, I never really gave much thought to people I passed in the street before. This book opens your eyes to the world around you in a really fun and charming way. It's written in a way that keeps you engaged without being too much of a difficult read. Complex vocabulary is avoided to portray the personality of the characters involved, it's so easy to just read and read and get lost in the world of Tom and Pia without realising how much of the book you've read. There's a quote on the front of the book which reads "The kind of book you have to ration to avoid it being over too quickly" from the Daily Mail. I don't usually trust the quotes on the front of the book, yet this is one which I found myself completely agreeing with by the end. I don't think I've been this lost in the worlds of the characters of a book since I read "Shadow of the Minotaur" by Alan Gibbons when I was younger, officially my first ever 'favourite book' which I must have read about 5 times.
If you're looking for a fun and quirky little light read to escape the hectic world around you then I strongly recommend that you pick yourself up this little gem.
