A Chance of Lifetime

a review

The story of Chance of a Lifetime is about a courier girl named Helen Davies who took a group of tourists on a tour around Europe, from London to Istanbul. The plot flows as the journey moved from on country to another. The writer shows how the main figure, Helen, found new things in every country; also how she tried to approach and make every members of the group happy. She was interested in one of her clients until she found some strange coincidence which made her suspicious of him. The writer tries to hide some facts in the story to build a suspense which makes the story more vivid and interesting. The ending is just like a general suspense story. But, some readers may not expect this particular ending and suppose that in the end, Helen may find something making her happy, such as finding her love or making up her relationship with her former boyfriend, Tom. The ending is quite common as two of the tourists, Vic and Sarah, his girlfriend, who act like other tourists and pretend not knowing each other in the tour but sometimes act strangely, were caught in the airport for his fake passport. The writer has made this story a typical story which hides some facts or coincidences and comes up with a surprise in the end. However, the writer was successful in making it interesting, easy to read, and easy to understand.

The plot flows interestingly, showing the coherence and consequence from one paragraph to the next. But, sometimes, the writer cuts the story and continues with the next day. I think he wants to hide something to build the suspense and come up with everything revealed in the end of the story. The happy ending may be different from what the readers expect, at least from what I expected, but writers come up with different idea of happiness. The real happiness for Helen is not that she found her love, met a boy friend or such happiness, but that finally she found her life and her own choice to live it, and didn’t pin her happiness on a man any more.

The writer has built strong characters in the story, especially for Helen as she is the main figure. Helen is shown as a doubtful person at the beginning until her friend, Julia, gave her advice to find her happiness. Then, she began to think about herself, about her life and how to fill it, and so on. Not all the characters in the story have details in their description. Some are really well-described with details and through their saying or acting, but some are only little involved in the story so that they are not well-described. The description of Helen’s character is so clear that the readers may be on her side and hope that something good may happen to her. On the other hand, Vic’s and Sarah’s characters are described in an unclear way although they are shown as likely important figures in the story. Sometimes, the writer shows them as good persons, and sometimes as confusing ones. He did that to make the readers keep on wondering who actually they are, which lead them to read the story until the end.

I think this story is intended to be read in one reading, so that the writer has made it quite short, along with some illustration, but with an interesting plot making the readers unwilling to put it down before they finish reading it, a flowing narrative, light conversation and usage of easy-to-understand words. In other words, the writer intends to make this story as a light reading. Simple and short sentences, therefore, are often used in the story. The writer didn’t put many details on places and the situations surrounding make the story will be longer and more complicated. However, the descriptions in this story are still sufficient to sustain the wholeness of the story and to build the suspense and the interest of the readers. In the story, the writer also gives a lot of question, most of which are Helen’s towards herself. Then, we can find the answer through the happy ending. For me, the story was written in a narrative way with a lot of description and illustration. Therefore, only by reading the whole book and understanding the plot can we absorb the main points of the story. When I read it, I tried to guess the ending, but it was wrong at all. I had to read till the end to really know the writer’s thoughts.

Reflection on Julia’s Advice

Before Helen took the job from Global tour to bring the tourists around Europe, her friend, Julia, gave her advice to take it and to find her own happiness. For her, so far Helen’s happiness always depended on a man, Tom. From that moment, she began to think about it and finally she took the tour. Julia wasn’t wrong for Helen found a lot of joys, new experiences and many surprises, but above all, she found her life and how to live it.

For me, Julia’s advice is very good that I would give the same advice if were in her position. Since true happiness or joy come from oneself, someone cannot rely his happiness on someone else. It’s true that by finding his own life and how to live it, someone will find happiness more than he has found before. Freedom from boundaries and freedom to choose are the important things to find true happiness and freedom is gained by getting rid of all dependence on others. Self dependence and self confidence, as the results of freedom from boundaries, will make us free to choose our lives and how to live it.