All her beautiful Gina, Manolo, Prada and Christian Dior shoes gone in an instant, leaving her ... well, bereft and barefoot (well, not quite, she still has a pair of wellies left). And broken hearted as Justin chucks her out on the street.
It is clear from the outset that Amy loves her shoes - not just because she has spent tons of money on most of them, but because of the memories that they hold for her. But the pair she is saddest about losing is her late ballerina mother's pointe shoes. As she can't fix her broken heart (Justin is refusing to listen to her excuses), she decides to go on a mission to retrieve her shoes. Unfortunately, they have been scattered the world over and all Amy has to go on is a list of names and addresses - she doesn't even know who has what shoes!!! But undeterred she sets off on a journey, which turns out to be more a journey of self-discovery than anything else.Part comedy, tragedy, mystery and romance, "Clicking Her Heels" is a fabulous piece of chick-lit which made me laugh and cry and, most importantly, keep turning the pages eager to know what happened next. Okay, it may not have been particularly realistic - after all, what kinda evil SOB would do something as horrible as sell someone's prized possessions without concrete evidence? That's just sick! - but it's an interesting concept for a story which I've never seen used before, so I was intrigued from the outset. I'd be gutted if someone took all my shoes and sold them for revenge. I can barely bring myself to get rid of any myself, let alone have the choice taken away from me!!!
The other things that kept me reading were wondering if Amy and Justin would end up back together (even if she WAS cheating on him, surely what HE did was more unforgivable?) and seeing the bonds that Amy often forged with the new owners of her shoes, in particular the lovely grandmother Alice in New York. Meeting these people encouraged Amy to share her own memories and therefore find out more about herself, and let the reader in further, in the process.I liked Amy's character, she was quite a happy-go-lucky sort on the surface but it was obvious from the outset that she wasn't quite as content underneath, and the discoveries both about herself and about others help to bring this out, and her flaws seem to somehow make her seem even more likeable as a result. I was rooting for her all the way through - although I wasn't sure how I wanted her journey to end, I wanted it to be a happy ending.
I would recommend this novel if you like Marian keyes or Sophie Kinsella - it's a warm, fairly-lighthearted story that will make you laugh and may make you cry a little too. It's nothing particularly high-brow but as far as I'm concerned, as long as a book makes you want to keep on reading, it's a hit! Score : 7/10