If only my dad were head of a country. Maybe then no editor would dare mess with my brilliant prose.

Of course, then I might have produced a book as amateurish as P.S., I Love You.

If anyone ever needed an editor, it's Cecelia Ahern, author of P.S., I Love You and daughter of Irish Prime Minister Bertie Ahern.

A good editor could have told the younger Ahern that advancing a plot means not wasting half a page on a description of characters putting sugar in their coffee. A good editor might have pointed out that Ahern's decision to write an entire 400-page novel in three months is not the best way to produce a tightly woven piece of literature.

True, Ahern has limitations she can't help. She's only 22, and this is her first novel. And true, it's difficult to write descriptive passages and still move the plot along. But note to Ahern and her editors: Your readers expect you to do just that, no matter how young or inexperienced you might be.

No one wants to visualize a character who "sobbed her fat, salty tears" or who "longed for the couch to hold out its arms to her, but even it ignored her."

No one wants to endure tedious, pointless passages like the following:

"Hi, can I speak to Daniel Connelly, please?"

"Yeah, hold on." She was put on hold and "Greensleeves" belted out into her ear. "Hello?"

"Hi, Daniel?"

"Yeah, who's this?"

"It's Holly Kennedy." She danced nervously around her bedroom, hoping he would recognize the name.

"Who?" he yelled as the noise in the background became louder.

Holly dived onto her bed in embarrassment. "It's Holly Kennedy? Declan's sister?"

"Oh Holly, hiya, hold on a second while I go somewhere quieter."

And so on for another mind-numbing page.

Had P.S., I Love You been cut in half and all the yawn-inducing plot inhibitors removed, it might have been a worthwhile book. Certainly the premise is interesting:

Holly Kennedy, a 30-year-old Irish woman, is widowed after seven years of marriage to her childhood sweetheart. Her husband left her 10 letters, with the instructions that she open one a month after his death. Each letter gives her a tip on how to move on with her life.

Aided by her childhood friends and her occasionally dysfunctional family, Holly learns how to deal with her grief in a sometimes poignant, sometimes humorous process.

In an interview published at the end of the book, Ahern says she has never lost anyone close to her, yet she writes about grief with a truthful resonance. Her descriptions of Holly's pain are evocative and tightly written.

If only she'd had someone to red- pencil all the bloated passages from the rest of the novel, she might have had a work that justifies the $250,000 promotional budget being spent to launch it in the United States.

Vicky Uhland is a freelance writer living in Denver.