How Ahern Wrote:

Speaker

In Ahern's works she brings a main focus to female lead characters. Between the different genres of her works she has continuously made an effort to include representation of feminism, whether that be her poems in Roar or the strong female lead characters she develops in her romantic novels. Her stories are told through a first person point of view of the female protagonist, allowing the reader to see into the speaker's mind and understand her thoughts and decisions through the plot of the story. Many of her main characters also share similar traits and experiences that make a lot of her works seem cohesive and easy to identify as her writing. In contrast to many other romantic writers, Ahern's speaker has a very conversational tone, making her work easy to follow and have a sense of familiarity. 

Topics

Majority of Ahern's works fall into romantic fiction, as most of her novels are written for young adult readers. Even though her works are romance based, she includes uncommon topics within each of her novels to connect with the reader and create a sense of vulnerability of the speaker. For example, in her novel P.S. I Love You, the main character's husband, passes away from complications with a brain tumor. Many of her other works have included topics that are not usually discussed, especially within romantic novels; Ranging from lighter topics such as unplanned pregnancy in Where Rainbows End, all the way to heavy topics such as suicide in How to Fall in Love. Using such a wide variety of topics makes her works more relatable to readers and helps bring awareness to topics that aren’t commonly discussed, especially during the dates of publication.

Structure

Ahern’s books are typically written in a strict timeline, with memories here and there to help the reader piece together what had happened prior to the beginning of the novel and in between the unspoken gaps. For example, in How To Fall in Love the story follows the main character as she goes through a troubling time in her life. Similarly, P.S. I Love You follows the main character as she also struggles through a difficult time in her life, except Ahern illustrates many of the speaker's memories through the letters from her late husband. Unlike How To Fall in Love, Where Rainbows End follows the story of the two protagonists, but the story is told strictly through letters and emails to one another, leaving a large amount of the story up for analysis by the reader. 

Explanation

I found the epistolary literature to be the most identifiable part of Ahern's work, so I chose to incorporate an exchange of letters between two fictional characters. In an attempt to simulate the English style of writing that Ahern uses, I used more formal language than most other novels would, while also trying to keep the overall tone conversational. The speaker of my piece is also a female lead who is in-touch and understanding of her emotions in order to replicate the characters found in all of Ahern's writings. Additionally, Ahern’s descriptive language plays a major role in the overall message and image painted through reading her work. I used several adjectives to describe one thing in order to mimic how Ahern gives the reader the ability to create a movie within their mind as they read. I attempted to use heartbreak as a major topic in my piece, in order to replicate Ahern's use of heavy messages throughout her novels while still keeping my piece lighthearted.