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bookish_bobbin's review
4.0
I got on with this book so well. Whilst at uni there were times when I was confined to my room and not necessarily to study, I could relate so well to the friends who used to be and how it can cause awkwardness in a group. I did enjoy this book a lot and although it wasn't quite what I expected I still loved the ending. I was hoping Leigha might have grown up and realised that Harry didn't intentionally hurt her no matter how convenient it seemed. But Johnny and Adam were right it was all about Leigha. At least I know I'm not the only one who went through something like this at university. Good job!
zeirazeira's review
3.0
I received this a the result of a FirstReads giveaway.
For the record, I'm not usually a romance reader. I find them repetitive and to be honest, a bit boring. The description of the book was the main reason I opted to read this one when I entered the giveaway. I opened the book and have to admit, the going was a bit slow. It does pick up around the end of the first half so it is worth it to continue reading.
It begins with events happening in the present, which will undoubtedly lead to the end, but then you are pulled back into the past so that you can understand the start and end. To be honest, it had a movie feel to it just reading it. Not many books make me feel that way but this one feels like it was written more for moving pictures. (That could just be me.)
I like to comment on the characters and know that doing so here may open up a can of worms, as there are so many and as usual, I will try hard not to ruin the whole book. Our heroine is easily relatable. I attest that she would have been more relatable had I been 20 years younger, but I digress. She did have her weaker moments and I truly felt that by the end she had not only matured but had become a stronger person. The other characters, including our hero were very well done. I think we all know a medley of people like this and may even have (or have had) friends like them. I really did dislike our villainess and villain. If I could have reached through the book to slap them, I would have. Supporting characters really spanned the spectrum of personalities. Loyal, rude and strong to more passive and torn. Lawless does a fantastic job building them up and describing them to you without feeling like it is all you are reading, something that I find some romances do.
The plot was simple and uncomplicated. I found I could predict what was going to happen along the way and at the end. As for the climax, I think I may have expected just a touch more. I still do not understand why Harriet's flatmates reacted the way they did. Were we that petty when we were young? Why were there so many triangles throughout the book? Were they all so stuck in a past that they couldn't have?
A bit hard to read sometimes as your heart would break for our main character one moment and then will her to fight back the next.
As for editing, I did run across a few mistakes that made me stop and reread the whole sentence. Usually it was just a he instead of a she or vice versa. At one point, I had to reread the whole exchange to make sure who I thought had said something, was in fact the person who had said it.
The chapters are short and make it nice for those moments where you only have a few minutes to spare. Lawless, as I mentioned earlier, has a fantastic writing style that truly brings you into the moment. With the slower beginning, this was critical in having me continue to push through. I am glad I did because it could have been just another romance for me had I not.
A pleasant read with me admitting that this romance wasn't all bad. Stick it out, it is a pretty good book in the end.
For the record, I'm not usually a romance reader. I find them repetitive and to be honest, a bit boring. The description of the book was the main reason I opted to read this one when I entered the giveaway. I opened the book and have to admit, the going was a bit slow. It does pick up around the end of the first half so it is worth it to continue reading.
It begins with events happening in the present, which will undoubtedly lead to the end, but then you are pulled back into the past so that you can understand the start and end. To be honest, it had a movie feel to it just reading it. Not many books make me feel that way but this one feels like it was written more for moving pictures. (That could just be me.)
I like to comment on the characters and know that doing so here may open up a can of worms, as there are so many and as usual, I will try hard not to ruin the whole book. Our heroine is easily relatable. I attest that she would have been more relatable had I been 20 years younger, but I digress. She did have her weaker moments and I truly felt that by the end she had not only matured but had become a stronger person. The other characters, including our hero were very well done. I think we all know a medley of people like this and may even have (or have had) friends like them. I really did dislike our villainess and villain. If I could have reached through the book to slap them, I would have. Supporting characters really spanned the spectrum of personalities. Loyal, rude and strong to more passive and torn. Lawless does a fantastic job building them up and describing them to you without feeling like it is all you are reading, something that I find some romances do.
The plot was simple and uncomplicated. I found I could predict what was going to happen along the way and at the end. As for the climax, I think I may have expected just a touch more. I still do not understand why Harriet's flatmates reacted the way they did. Were we that petty when we were young? Why were there so many triangles throughout the book? Were they all so stuck in a past that they couldn't have?
A bit hard to read sometimes as your heart would break for our main character one moment and then will her to fight back the next.
As for editing, I did run across a few mistakes that made me stop and reread the whole sentence. Usually it was just a he instead of a she or vice versa. At one point, I had to reread the whole exchange to make sure who I thought had said something, was in fact the person who had said it.
The chapters are short and make it nice for those moments where you only have a few minutes to spare. Lawless, as I mentioned earlier, has a fantastic writing style that truly brings you into the moment. With the slower beginning, this was critical in having me continue to push through. I am glad I did because it could have been just another romance for me had I not.
A pleasant read with me admitting that this romance wasn't all bad. Stick it out, it is a pretty good book in the end.
jenniferhart's review
4.0
What a great story. I loved some of the characters and hated some others, but their stories were interesting and I felt like I knew them.
brewtifulfiction's review
2.0
I was expecting good things from this book and I have to say I was left disappointed. It seemed to be quite long and in the end nothing really happened, there was no real twist or big reveal, it all ended up seeming pointless?
snowflakessunshinebooks's review
2.0
Too many characters! 7 main stars in this book, relationships, love triangles and far too much drama!
leah_reads's review
5.0
New favourite author alert! :)
*Received in exchange for an honest review*
*Thank you, Harper Impulse!*
Ohhhhh this book! I have SO MANY FEELS. I wasn't prepared for what this book did to me, I really wasn't. I'm not a big Contemporary reader but there was something about this book that grabbed onto me. I had to get myself a copy and I am so glad that I did (thank you, Amy!) The Best Thing I Never Had was made all the better by the fact that I haven't long graduated university. All of the events and behaviours which unfold are all so, so familiar and I found myself feeling incredibly nostalgic. I felt like I could related to every single one of the characters in different ways - there are not many books which are capable of doing that! Usually there's a character that you can easily distance yourself from, but this was definitely not the case with this one.
“Johnny appeared out of nowhere to save the day, reaching clumsily over Harriet’s head to punch the correct answer on the touch screen with just milliseconds to spare. Sukie exhaled in relief; she took her quiz machine investments very seriously; after all, £2 could be a small fortune to a student the wrong side of Reading Week.”
This book is packed to the brim with emotion and such real friendships. The ups and downs are portrayed beautifully, as are the after effects of falling in love with someone that you really shouldn't have. I felt so supportive of Harriet and constantly annoyed by Leigha. The seven characters are easy to picture; it's likely that we all have similar friends to those that are in this book. This just made the novel even better. It's hard to believe that this book is a debut! The events are so realistic and the portrayal of student life is perfect. The mess of emotions, the stress, the friendships that you think will last forever. Everything is so completely spot on. Harriet and Adam are English students, my kind of people! What was so nice was that you could imagine yourself fitting in with this group of friends; this mash of personalities that just work together. The silly routines that they kept were so familiar and so completely serious. It definitely drags up a lot of nostalgia.
“Yeah, but – its board game night, ‘The Game of Life’…” Harriet said, stupid with her share of the two jugs of Snakebite they’d imbibed already.
“Fuck ‘The Game of Life’,” Adam replied, with great delight, refilling their pint glasses with a clumsy slosh from the pitcher. “I always get the shit jobs anyway.”
The thing I loved was that this book projects so many moral questions. Would you go for someone that your best friend has crushed on for the longest time? If it happened to you, would you be able to then support your friend in that relationship? The way that the friendship transforms over a few revelations is shocking. It shows how brittle things can be. It's amazing how people that love each other so much can then project so much hatred at that person. The Best Thing I Never Had is so, so relatable. Everything that unfolds is something that we will have all been through at some point in our lives. I really cannot recommend this book enough. If you're not a big Contemporary reader, get your paws on this! It's definitely changed my mind.
If anyone can recommend me books similar to this one, I'm all ears! A fantastic, relatable, realistic and gripping read; I've definitely found myself a new favourite author!
*Received in exchange for an honest review*
*Thank you, Harper Impulse!*
Ohhhhh this book! I have SO MANY FEELS. I wasn't prepared for what this book did to me, I really wasn't. I'm not a big Contemporary reader but there was something about this book that grabbed onto me. I had to get myself a copy and I am so glad that I did (thank you, Amy!) The Best Thing I Never Had was made all the better by the fact that I haven't long graduated university. All of the events and behaviours which unfold are all so, so familiar and I found myself feeling incredibly nostalgic. I felt like I could related to every single one of the characters in different ways - there are not many books which are capable of doing that! Usually there's a character that you can easily distance yourself from, but this was definitely not the case with this one.
“Johnny appeared out of nowhere to save the day, reaching clumsily over Harriet’s head to punch the correct answer on the touch screen with just milliseconds to spare. Sukie exhaled in relief; she took her quiz machine investments very seriously; after all, £2 could be a small fortune to a student the wrong side of Reading Week.”
This book is packed to the brim with emotion and such real friendships. The ups and downs are portrayed beautifully, as are the after effects of falling in love with someone that you really shouldn't have. I felt so supportive of Harriet and constantly annoyed by Leigha. The seven characters are easy to picture; it's likely that we all have similar friends to those that are in this book. This just made the novel even better. It's hard to believe that this book is a debut! The events are so realistic and the portrayal of student life is perfect. The mess of emotions, the stress, the friendships that you think will last forever. Everything is so completely spot on. Harriet and Adam are English students, my kind of people! What was so nice was that you could imagine yourself fitting in with this group of friends; this mash of personalities that just work together. The silly routines that they kept were so familiar and so completely serious. It definitely drags up a lot of nostalgia.
“Yeah, but – its board game night, ‘The Game of Life’…” Harriet said, stupid with her share of the two jugs of Snakebite they’d imbibed already.
“Fuck ‘The Game of Life’,” Adam replied, with great delight, refilling their pint glasses with a clumsy slosh from the pitcher. “I always get the shit jobs anyway.”
The thing I loved was that this book projects so many moral questions. Would you go for someone that your best friend has crushed on for the longest time? If it happened to you, would you be able to then support your friend in that relationship? The way that the friendship transforms over a few revelations is shocking. It shows how brittle things can be. It's amazing how people that love each other so much can then project so much hatred at that person. The Best Thing I Never Had is so, so relatable. Everything that unfolds is something that we will have all been through at some point in our lives. I really cannot recommend this book enough. If you're not a big Contemporary reader, get your paws on this! It's definitely changed my mind.
If anyone can recommend me books similar to this one, I'm all ears! A fantastic, relatable, realistic and gripping read; I've definitely found myself a new favourite author!
justkeyreads's review
4.0
This book was the woes of friendship, drama and love that made you think what friendship really means and the extent to be happy for you and not anyone else.
julesg's review
5.0
I dragged the last chapters of this book out to make it last longer. That's probably the highest praise I can offer.
leahmichelle_13's review
5.0
When Harper Impulse invited me to be part of their Romance Revolution I was so pleased! I love the fact I’m going to be able to get the word out there all about their fabulous titles, and I loved even more (who wouldn’t) getting the chance to review as many Harper Impulse titles as I can physically read. First up on my list was The Best Thing I Never Had by Erin Lawless, which was compared to One Day and sounded a little bit like Katy Regan’s latest novel How We Met. I really love novels about friendship so this one sounded right up my alley, and boy was it.
The Best Thing I Never Had is very much a story about friendship. Yes, it also features love and relationships, but at it’s core, it features on seven friends. Harriet, Sukie, Nicky, Miles, Leigha (name check, alert, though it’s spelt wrong), Adam and Johnny. At University they were all close, they all hung out together, until Harriet and Adam started spending more and more time together, which meant the inevitable happened, but instead of telling their friends about it, they lied. They kept it a secret. For so long, that when the secret eventually came out, so did the recriminations, especially those from Leigha and Sukie. They hounded Harriet, until she felt she had no choice but to retreat. Until she had to eventually give up the one thing that meant the most to her. Now, six years later, a wedding invitation drops through each friends’ letterbox, telling them Nicky and Miles are finally getting hitched, meaning a reunion is on the cards, but just how will it work with so much animosity?
I absolutely loved The Best Thing I Never Had. It blew me away from start to finish, it absolutely did. It is very much in a similar vein to Katy Regan’s (fabulous) novel How We Met, and I loved how it was split into two parts, how we got to find out how the friendship imploded before we had to deal with the reunion at the wedding. It was funny, it was honest, it was a proper look at how friendships can sometimes make or break you. How even the people who are meant to be the closest to you in the world can turn on a dime and leave you out in the cold. It was hard to read at times, because I felt Leigha and Sukie hadn’t just stopped talking to Harriet, they’d abandoned her completely and even sort of bullied her. I’ve had that happen to me, and it’s the worst feeling in the world. That your best friends, who know most of your secrets, can do that, is awful, and so I never really cared about Sukie or Leigha. If they had walked in front of a bus, I probably wouldn’t have felt sad because they were horrible, awful girls. Leigha in particular was just plain evil, and her vendetta against Harriet was spiteful and nasty, and it surprised me that sensible Nicky, sweet, sensible, stuck in the middle Nicky, allowed her to be that way.
Harriet and Adam were by far my favourite characters. I was so taken in with their story, I adored seeing the relationship develop from friends to something more and I felt Lawless did them justice. It was so sweet. Of course, it didn’t stay that way, but for that while, I felt happy for the pair, which made it worse when the inevitable happened. I quite liked Johnny, Adam and Miles’s flatmate, too, though I don’t agree with the things he did, but I can also understand he was under Leigh’s spell so I sort of had pity for him. This was such a wonderful read, one I thoroughly enjoyed getting into, and one I wished never had to end because I could have read about their lives indefinitely. Erin Lawless is a fabulous writer, and she deserves all kinds of plaudits for her writing because it is super. I was hooked, let me tell you, and even when the book was down, I was still thinking about it, still wondering about it, desperately hoping for a happy outcome. The only thing I would have wished to have seen in the novel was Leigh’s come-uppance. I felt her nastiness deserved retribution, but maybe I’m just being bitter and selfish. Or, y’know, maybe how it ended was her retribution. Who knows? I, for one, can’t wait for Erin’s next book because The Best Thing I Never Had was mind-blowingly good and everyone should read it.
The Best Thing I Never Had is very much a story about friendship. Yes, it also features love and relationships, but at it’s core, it features on seven friends. Harriet, Sukie, Nicky, Miles, Leigha (name check, alert, though it’s spelt wrong), Adam and Johnny. At University they were all close, they all hung out together, until Harriet and Adam started spending more and more time together, which meant the inevitable happened, but instead of telling their friends about it, they lied. They kept it a secret. For so long, that when the secret eventually came out, so did the recriminations, especially those from Leigha and Sukie. They hounded Harriet, until she felt she had no choice but to retreat. Until she had to eventually give up the one thing that meant the most to her. Now, six years later, a wedding invitation drops through each friends’ letterbox, telling them Nicky and Miles are finally getting hitched, meaning a reunion is on the cards, but just how will it work with so much animosity?
I absolutely loved The Best Thing I Never Had. It blew me away from start to finish, it absolutely did. It is very much in a similar vein to Katy Regan’s (fabulous) novel How We Met, and I loved how it was split into two parts, how we got to find out how the friendship imploded before we had to deal with the reunion at the wedding. It was funny, it was honest, it was a proper look at how friendships can sometimes make or break you. How even the people who are meant to be the closest to you in the world can turn on a dime and leave you out in the cold. It was hard to read at times, because I felt Leigha and Sukie hadn’t just stopped talking to Harriet, they’d abandoned her completely and even sort of bullied her. I’ve had that happen to me, and it’s the worst feeling in the world. That your best friends, who know most of your secrets, can do that, is awful, and so I never really cared about Sukie or Leigha. If they had walked in front of a bus, I probably wouldn’t have felt sad because they were horrible, awful girls. Leigha in particular was just plain evil, and her vendetta against Harriet was spiteful and nasty, and it surprised me that sensible Nicky, sweet, sensible, stuck in the middle Nicky, allowed her to be that way.
Harriet and Adam were by far my favourite characters. I was so taken in with their story, I adored seeing the relationship develop from friends to something more and I felt Lawless did them justice. It was so sweet. Of course, it didn’t stay that way, but for that while, I felt happy for the pair, which made it worse when the inevitable happened. I quite liked Johnny, Adam and Miles’s flatmate, too, though I don’t agree with the things he did, but I can also understand he was under Leigh’s spell so I sort of had pity for him. This was such a wonderful read, one I thoroughly enjoyed getting into, and one I wished never had to end because I could have read about their lives indefinitely. Erin Lawless is a fabulous writer, and she deserves all kinds of plaudits for her writing because it is super. I was hooked, let me tell you, and even when the book was down, I was still thinking about it, still wondering about it, desperately hoping for a happy outcome. The only thing I would have wished to have seen in the novel was Leigh’s come-uppance. I felt her nastiness deserved retribution, but maybe I’m just being bitter and selfish. Or, y’know, maybe how it ended was her retribution. Who knows? I, for one, can’t wait for Erin’s next book because The Best Thing I Never Had was mind-blowingly good and everyone should read it.
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