The Secret Life of Albert Entwistle: the most heartwarming and uplifting love story of the year

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Albert has worked in the same job as a postman since leaving school. He avoids mixing with his work colleagues as much as possible, but he loves his job and is devastated to find he is going to be forced to retire at his next birthday. Albert Entwistle had been a postman in northern England since he was sixteen years old. His life revolved around the routines he had established for himself. People might have described Albert as shy and a man that kept to himself. Albert had no friends or any living family. He had no hobbies or interests other than his desire to deliver the mail and take care of his cat named Gracie. His parents had both died and he had no siblings. He resided in his childhood home. His daily routine was predictable. Only his cat, Gracie, held a special place in his heart. A long time ago, though, there was a boy named George who owned a big piece of Albert’s heart.

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He looked like the kind of man people would call a ‘drink of water’. But he didn’t feel like that inside; inside he felt like he was a whole bundle of fun. Or at least I would be, if I could only work out a way of getting the fun out of me.” year-old Albert Entwistle has been a postie in a quiet town in Northern England for all his life, living alone since the death of his mam 18 years ago. He keeps himself to himself. He always has. But he's just learned he'll be forced to retire at his next birthday. With no friends and nothing to look forward to, the lonely future he faces terrifies him. He realises it's finally time to be honest about who he is. He must learn to ask for what he wants. And he must find the courage to look for George, the man that, many years ago, he lost - but has never forgotten. Albert is such an endearing character - flawed, funny and awkward, but completely relatable. A wonderfully warm story that completely drew me in' RUTH HOGAN I so enjoyed this – a warm-hearted, moving and thought-provoking joy about an elderly postman’s awakening to life and love’ FANNY BLAKEI enjoyed the narrator as he sounded like who I thought Albert to be, including his voice. He was incredibly believable.

The Secret Life of Albert Entwistle by Matt Cain | Hachette UK

The story itself is cute, but it is too long. For example, the storytelling needs some fine tuning as some of the events are not too exciting. Additionally, the romance between Albert and George is underwhelming. I still don’t understand what is so special about George. Aside from just love, did George inspire Albert to be a better person? Did Albert and George go through an experience that bonded them? Is there a great friendship between Albert and George? Albert Entwistle leads a very simple life. He’s a postman serving the Lancashire district, living alone with his beloved cat Gracie. He’s friendly to the people on his route but not so much as to engage with anyone, even his workmates. A few months before his 65th birthday, he receives a letter from Human Resources notifying him of his upcoming mandatory retirement. With that notice, everything for Albert begins to unravel, making him question his chosen isolated life because without work, he struggles for meaning. He decides that he’s going to make some changes, start to live and reach out to the people around him. And, his most important decision emerges from that plan…to seek out the once love of his life from 40 years ago, a boy named George Atkinson. That also means he will need to also emerge from the closet he’s hid in all his life. year old Albert has been a postman all his adult life. And that’s all that people know about him. He is a loner, not because he hates people but he is afraid of them and of theirs discovering his big secret. But when he receives an official letter saying he has to retire from his job on his 65th birthday, Albert is left questioning his life choices. With no family, no friends and no future, is he destined to spend the rest of his life alone? Albert decides that it high time to take charge of the situation and being making some courageous changes in his life, including a search for his long lost love, George. ABOUT 'THE SECRET LIFE OF ALBERT ENTWHISTLE': Albert Entwistle is a private man with a quiet, simple life. He lives alone with his cat Gracie. And he’s a postman. At least he was a postman until, three months before his sixty-fifth birthday, he receives a letter from the Royal Mail thanking him for decades of service and stating he is being forced into retirement. Most of the story is Albert opening up to friendship and the possibility of finding his lost love. There is very much a “found family” element going on. He comes to rely on a young single mother of Trinidadian heritage as well as an older single woman who are both people on his postal route. As they help him, he also helps them. Very heartwarming, all in all. There is also a degree of formulaic-ness and every stereotyped person possible who needs support is turned into a character and given 10 minutes in the spotlight. Also, parts sort of turn into a manifesto on gay pride (from young George). If I can see the strings being tugged, it takes away a bit of the emotional depth for me.MC: It gets so much better, hang in there, you won’t believe how much better it can get. And everything you think is closed to you; you will be able to achieve one day. Never give up, never lose faith in yourself. I’d like to think he’d be quite happy with the way things have turned out. Now sixty-five and being forced into retirement from a job he's held all his life, Albert decides it's finally time to truly start living. Gathering up the courage he didn't know he had, Albert begins a search to find George - the boy he loved with his whole heart and has never forgotten. Cain writes Albert's journey of courage from here like the opening of a budded flower. Albert, in his journey to find his one lost love, finds love and acceptance of himself; he finds friends and allies in unlikely places and knowledge that the world has changed enough so that he can embrace being the person he wants to be. I was also disappointed that the cat, Gracie, didn’t appear more throughout the book, and the ending is very unrealistic and predictable. Alright,” says George, “I feel like a seagull. A big handsome seagull, flapping its wings and sailing off into the air!”

The Secret Life of Albert Entwistle - Feeling Book Review: The Secret Life of Albert Entwistle - Feeling

Albert is set in his life, not drawing too much attention to himself and leads a strict routine. He is a post office worker and lives with his Cat. People always seem to tell him everything, but he just wants to lead his simple life. Then the unimaginable happens and that dreaded letter of retirement changes everything and seems to set off a whole string of unlikeable events. Without giving the whole story away, he soon discovers that people in general are not that bad to get to know, and that love always conquers all.

There are too many characters but don't worry about memorising them. Each person is sketched well enough for you to move on with the flow and still recall them whenever they come up in the plot. I always enjoy people who are a bit north or south of center. This applies to characters, too. Being different is something to be proud of and to celebrate, in my humble opinion. This beautiful story about opening your life and your heart to those around you by offering up your truest self hit a sweet spot for me! 4.5 stars rounded up! But now here the notes were, in his hands, bringing his secret life bursting into the present and reminding him of how happy he'd been each time he'd unfolded one of them. It was this happiness that had first inspired him to become a postman; in quite a simple way he'd thought that by delivering mail he'd get to spend his life making other people happy.” Matt's breakthrough work of fiction, The Madonna Of Bolton, became Unbound’s fastest crowdfunded novel ever before it was published in 2018. In 2021, The Secret Life of Albert Entwistle was published by Headline, Becoming Ted followed in 2023, and One Love is set for release in January 2024. I listened to this on audiobook. Loved the narrator he really brought Albert and the rest of the characters to life. There were some great characters in this book.