I read it together with two of my friends, Amanda and Monika, a even though not either of us ended up liking it, we still enjoyed our conversations a jokes, so for that reason, I am very glad we read it. She’s looked him up online and discovered he’s a once famous artist, and a minor celebrity in his day. It came close with Alice, who realises her brand “was all about authenticity”, but knows her posts paint sunny lie after sunny lie. As she walked briskly past the graves of the fallen soldiers and the White Russian ŽmigrŽs, she could sense the sheltering wildlife--the gray squirrels, urban foxes, and the jet-black ravens--guarding the graves like the souls of the dead.

The story starts with Monica, a café owner, finding a small green note book titled The Authenticity Project with the date. If you wanted to pray to a weirdo god or live in a school bus or marry a goose, no one in Alaska was going to say crap to you. It's a story about being brave and putting your real self forward--and finding out that it's not as scary as it seems. Clare Pooley creates the most interesting and wonderful characters who feel like firm friends by the end.The audiobook was narrated by Anna Cordell Who did a wonderful job with all the accents and this large cast of characters.

There are many great things about this book—one of them is its constant stream of memorably formulated insights about Alaska. You get multiple points of view in this book which are clear, and I really enjoyed how certain characters would pop up in the book and then they would get with their own chapter, you get a real sense of the characters inner voice. Inside Julian describes his loneliness since his wife died, and how he lost friends and relationships, now going days without talking to anyone. Leaving it on a table in Monica’s café, a warm, friendly place where Julian escapes at his most lonely moments, he never expects Monica to find it and track him down.I didn't have to introduce myself, I would just stand in a doorway while my name worked its way around the room in a chain of whispers, pursued by a number of surreptitious glances. Monica headed toward the left, looking out for an old man clutching a bottle of Bailey's Irish Cream. She is also touched by Julian story and decides she’s going to bring a little joy and purpose into his life. The plot and characters were far too weak and the writing too pedestrian to expect it to stretch out to almost 400 pages.

Monica stretched out on the sofa in her apartment above the cafe, a large glass of sauvignon blanc in one hand and the abandoned exercise book in the other. It's light-hearted, Christmassy feeling at times, but also has a dose of good sense and sobriety thrown in. The Authenticity Project is a story that will have you routing for all the characters and that they find their happy ever after, whether that be in love or in life. I'll see your marble slab with its fancy biblical quotation and raise you a life-size Jesus on the cross.Little do they realise that such small acts of honesty hold the power to impact all those who discover the notebook and change their lives completely.