I decided to check out this book after hearing and seeing quite a number of people ra

ving about it. Unfortunately I can’t really say I enjoyed it. If you like David Nicholls books then yes, you will most likely enjoy this one too. I felt it to be too depressing.

It is written almost as if it is a screen play. The dialogue is crisp and the scenes are described so vividly you can almost see them. Throughout the book, the author takes us back to this “one day”, July the 15th, through a period of twenty years, to look into the lives of the two characters, Emma and Dex. Starting in 1998 just after the two graduate from college, the story progresses, showing the different paths that they take in life and the changes in their relationship.

What I disliked most about this book is how the story just skips a whole year. It made me feel like I’ve just been uprooted and sent to a different place all together. I suppose it is meant to give you the feel

of

a year having passed and much having changed, but the feeling that I had to catch up and assume what I had missed in the course of that year was distracting for me. I feel that Nicholls should have included a summary or something

at the beginning of each new year. It’s certainly a clever premise to revisit the same day year after year, but I didn’t enjoy the way it was executed.

Also, I half expected there to be some romance. It’s what we all expect when we see a girl boy story. However, this would better be described as a look at the frustration of relationships. The harsh realities of life were quite accurate but almost too much of a downer. Certainly over four hundred pages with few glimmers of happiness gets difficult to continue to “enjoy” reading. I do give the author a lot of credit for his honest portrayal and perception but I can’t say I was moved by it, rather depressed.