Fourteen Days Later by Sibel Hodge
Helen Grey finds it easier to hide hermit-style after she finds out her boyfriend has been cheating on her. Rather than face the world and all the other cheating males out there, she hides inside and focuses on eating rather than diving into the dating pool. Her best friend, Ayshe, comes up with a fourteen day challenge to boost Helen’s confidence that Helen agrees to try, but doesn’t enjoy the activities such as speed dating and dog walking. All the while, Helen grows closer to Ayshe’s brother Kalem, but knows she can do nothing about her feelings. Kalem has a drop dead girlfriend in the picture, and Helen can’t risk her friendship with Ayshe over a boy. But as the challenge continues, Helen starts to notice changes in her life, and wonders if a fourteen days lifestyle challenge really could work.
Fourteen Days Later is the debut novel from author Sibel Hodge, and while I like the concept behind the story, I didn’t like the story a whole lot. Helen is your typical accident prone heroine, but with some crazy thing happening to her consistently throughout the fourteen days, it starts to become a bit unbelievable after awhile. And within the first chapter I figured out that Helen and Kalem would develop a “thing” but Helen didn’t figure it out until the last couple chapters, which made everything in between seem a bit pointless. The drama and buildup just wasn’t there. I felt the plot was too over the top yet slow at the same time. There were definitely some funny moments where I had to laugh out loud, but this is definitely not a favorite of mine. Perhaps Hodge’s second attempt, The Fashion Police, will fare better.
Rating: 2/5
