Michelle Haimoff

'Hailey and her friends are young, rich and beautiful. They have the world at their feet - and that's the problem.'

Michelle Haimoff gently depicts the way in which life goes on after 9/11 as easily as nothing terrible has ever happened. Hailey, the heroine of the book, just graduated, is madly in love with a guy who is not interested, and spends most of her nights drinking in the most expensive clubs in Manhattan. She is exactly the girl who the rest of the class would be jealous of or hate. Yet, the shallowness of the story is surprisingly smoothly balanced with Hailey's inner insecurity. Michelle Haimoff exposes the heroine's vulnerability by depicting her trauma of parents' divorce, zero communication with her only brother or ignorance from her mother. However, this insecurity is interestingly put in contrast as Hailey's problems seem to be nothing compare to the terryfying 9/11 and its aftermath. On the contrary, Michelle Haimoff enhances the ease in which Hailey's life has moved on since then.

It could be another cliché love story about a journey of heroine's self-discovery as the book does not come up with a shocking twist in the middle, nor the dialogues are brisk. Nevertheless, the realistic setting helps to get the novel on a whole different level. And so the book These Days Are Ours reminds to its reader that regardless of your financial situation, the most important part of anyone's life is not money, but people, friends, family. Because in the light of the 9/11 terrorist attack money can not replace your closest people who are there for you to help you to stand up on your feet again.The book is easy to read, but it has more to say beneath its superficial cover.

20.5.2016