EARLY RANTY REVIEW: ONE TRUE LOVES BY T.J. REID

One True Loves by Taylor Jenkins Reid

Published by: Washington Square Press

Genre: Contemporary Womens Fiction

Release date: June 7th 2016

Source: Edelweiss ARC

       
         

From the author of Maybe in Another Life—named a People Magazine pick and a "Best Book of the Summer" by Glamour and USA TODAY—comes a breathtaking new love story about a woman unexpectedly forced to choose between the husband she has long thought dead and the fiancé who has finally brought her back to life.

In her twenties, Emma Blair marries her high school sweetheart, Jesse. They build a life for themselves, far away from the expectations of their parents and the people of their hometown in Massachusetts. They travel the world together, living life to the fullest and seizing every opportunity for adventure.

On their first wedding anniversary, Jesse is on a helicopter over the Pacific when it goes missing. Just like that, Jesse is gone forever.

Emma quits her job and moves home in an effort to put her life back together. Years later, now in her thirties, Emma runs into an old friend, Sam, and finds herself falling in love again. When Emma and Sam get engaged, it feels like Emma’s second chance at happiness.

That is, until Jesse is found. He’s alive, and he’s been trying all these years to come home to her. With a husband and a fiancé, Emma has to now figure out who she is and what she wants, while trying to protect the ones she loves.

Who is her one true love? What does it mean to love truly?

Emma knows she has to listen to her heart. She’s just not sure what it’s saying.

WARNING:

I rarely use spoilers in my reviews but I couldn’t do without them this time. But don’t worry, they are all tagged and they are storyline spoilers only. There are no names of guys mentioned in spoilers so you won’t find out that happened to Jesse or Sam even if you read spoilers. 

TO READ SPOILERS HIGHLIGHT BLANK SPACES IN 4TH PARAGRAPH. 

MY REVIEW:

One True Loves started with great intro and I truly liked scenes from Emma’s past. But once story caught up with present, it went downhill pretty fast. All I got was unhealthy relationships and love triangle that made me feel disgusted with heroine instead of feeling sorry for her. I read this book because blurb promised emotional story. And “emotional” it was, just not in the way that I had expected…

Just to make things clear before I explain why I hated this story, there is one thing you should know about me – indecisive and selfish heroine is one of my biggest pet peeves when it comes to books. And Emma was exactly that.

I get it, heroine of this novel was in special and very peculiar situation. I can’t even imagine how I would feel if I widowed, mourned my husband and fell in love again only to find out that my husband wasn’t dead after all. It’s crazy situation so I understand that Emma was confused. But instead of facing situation like an adult and making mature decision, she did stupid thing after stupid thing that hurt everyone involved.

The way Emma dealt with the situation and played with other people’s feelings and prides angered me tremendously on personal level. I mean, if she wasn’t sure who of the two guys was her “true love” or with whom she wanted to spend rest of her life, she should have taken some time to think it through or something instead of hopping from one guy to another. She definitely shouldn’t have kissed both guys passionately in one day. And she definitely shouldn’t have had sex with one guy, than f*ck couple of times with other guy and then come back for more to the first guy. And all of that in matter of couple days! I just couldn’t condone or understand such behavior. And I can’t call such story romantic or emotional. The only emotion I felt was disgust and I’m sure that author aimed to achieve different emotion. Heroine didn’t have backbone (Emma reminded me of Kiera from Thoughtless, selfishly wanted both guys and acting on it, she even played make-believe for a while and had sex with one guy who ended up not being her chosen one AFTER she decided she wanted to spend her life with the other guy. Who does something like that? It was disgusting), one of her “loved ones” was a pushover and the other guy too pushy. Simply said, none of main characters won me over.

I don’t deny that writing was high-level and story had nice flow to it, but storyline and characters evoked only negative emotions in me. And since I contemplated to DNF this novel couple of times (and probably would if it wasn’t review copy), I can’t bring myself to rate it any higher than 2 stars. I admit that Taylor Jenkins Reid is talented writer but personally, this story isn’t my cuppa. If you don’t mind love triangles, cheating and indecisive heroine, go for this book. Otherwise stay very very far away from it.

 WHAT WAS THE LAST BOOK THAT MADE YOU FEEL TRULY ANGRY?

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