Reviews tagging 'Suicidal thoughts'

One True Loves by Taylor Jenkins Reid

39 reviews

graceybookster's review

Go to review page

challenging emotional hopeful inspiring reflective sad tense medium-paced

5.0

Audiobook 🎧 

GOOSEBUMPS…This book literally gave me goosebumps! 

This is the second book I’ve read by TJR and I was not disappointed. I love her writing style and how she has this incredible talent of making you really think about things and learn life lessons in such a profound way through her storytelling. 

It gripped me, broke my heart, healed it, made me reminisce my own past and made me feel sooo many things. There was just one thing that the main character did which I didn’t agree with but overall I felt this had a wonderful message about life and love. Just wow… 

*cries because it’s finished but happy to have read it at all*😭
P.S. #TeamSam <3 

Expand filter menu Content Warnings

nicolecurlsuptoread's review

Go to review page

challenging emotional reflective sad tense medium-paced
  • Plot- or character-driven? A mix
  • Strong character development? Yes
  • Loveable characters? Yes
  • Diverse cast of characters? No
  • Flaws of characters a main focus? No

5.0

Overall ⭐️⭐️⭐️⭐️⭐️ [5/5] 
Feels 😭😭😭😭 [4/5] 

📌 You’ll dig this if you like 
» Second chances 
» Friends to lovers 
» Love triangles 

Emma and Jesse were high school sweethearts, all the firsts! They build a life together away from their families and the day before their first wedding anniversary, Jesse takes a work trip and is assumed dead when his helicopter crashes in the Pacific. 

Almost four years later, he calls Emma to tell her he’s alive and he’s coming home to her. Except, she’s engaged now to the guy who’s loved her since high school. 

This book ruined me. I haven’t had a good book hangover in a while and One True Loves did it. It was devastating and tragic and beautiful and all the adjectives that can be used to describe a book that will stay with you. 

The romance was secondary to the themes of loss, grief, and how to move forward. Then, how to choose between the loves of your life. What do you do when you’ve always believed in one true love, but you have two? 

📌 What stood out 
» I loved that the book is divided into aptly titled sections, but otherwise didn’t have chapter numbers. 

» The chapter when Emma goes back home. Moving from the story being in the first person, then as if it’s being narrated from above, like an out of body experience, helped me connect to the grief piece. That’s what it feels like, and it was perfectly captured. 

» In the prologue, Emma talks about everyone’s life having a moment that splits it into before and after, pre and post. The poignancy of that concept was visceral for me. I know my moment and can recall it with stunning clarity. I was hooked by and connected with One True Loves from page 6. 

📌 Moments 
» Emma and her sister Marie start out as enemies, or at least, not really having anything to do with each other as teenagers. They have a moment toward the end of the book that is balm for their hurt and misunderstood souls. 

 Let me leave you with this moral of the story quote:
"There is nothing more romantic than this. Holding the very person that you thought you lost, and knowing you'll never lose them again. I don't think that true love means your only love. I think true love means loving truly. Loving purely. Loving wholly."
 
🚫Contains some heavy themes. Please check warnings. 

Expand filter menu Content Warnings

chelle22's review against another edition

Go to review page

adventurous challenging emotional hopeful inspiring reflective

5.0


Expand filter menu Content Warnings

datskira's review

Go to review page

emotional inspiring reflective sad fast-paced
  • Plot- or character-driven? Character
  • Strong character development? Yes
  • Loveable characters? Yes
  • Diverse cast of characters? No
  • Flaws of characters a main focus? No

4.0

It was a mostly enjoyable, easy read. At times, it veered on the boring side as there wasn't a lot of action. It was mostly angst slapped on angst, but it all resolved in a way I was pleased with. 

Expand filter menu Content Warnings

tiffanymmf's review against another edition

Go to review page

emotional reflective sad medium-paced
  • Plot- or character-driven? A mix
  • Strong character development? Yes
  • Loveable characters? Yes
  • Diverse cast of characters? No
  • Flaws of characters a main focus? It's complicated

4.5


Expand filter menu Content Warnings

ksamaine95's review

Go to review page

challenging emotional reflective sad medium-paced
  • Plot- or character-driven? Plot
  • Strong character development? Yes
  • Loveable characters? It's complicated
  • Diverse cast of characters? No
  • Flaws of characters a main focus? Yes

4.5

I was both sad & angry with this one. I wanted so bad for this to be my first 5 star of 2024 based on the plot alone. 

Loved majority of the writing but it left me smh. 
I felt like Emma knew her choice immediately and was too childish to simply ask for/give closure to Jesse. The author almost made a villain of Jesse & an angel of Sam randomly to make the choice more obvious.
There were several times I wanted to DNF because it was predictable. I held out hope to be disappointed.

 Other than my dislike for the direction she took the story in, TJR still gave me the love bug. 

Expand filter menu Content Warnings

ellaticonstellation's review

Go to review page

challenging dark emotional funny inspiring mysterious reflective sad tense fast-paced
  • Plot- or character-driven? A mix
  • Strong character development? Yes
  • Loveable characters? Yes
  • Diverse cast of characters? Yes
  • Flaws of characters a main focus? It's complicated

4.0

I like this book because I never read anything like it. It's simple but emotional. It's stressful to be in a situation where you love someone and lose him. You move on and love someone new and then the old love comes back. Damn, it sounds heartbreaking. 

I like that this discusses how people change, we evolve and that's okay. 

It became preachy at the end that's why I deducted a star. But overall, I enjoyed this. Thank you, Taylor✨

Expand filter menu Content Warnings

stephtoriz's review

Go to review page

emotional reflective sad fast-paced
  • Plot- or character-driven? A mix
  • Strong character development? No
  • Loveable characters? Yes
  • Diverse cast of characters? N/A
  • Flaws of characters a main focus? It's complicated

3.75


Expand filter menu Content Warnings

artemisvlassi's review against another edition

Go to review page

inspiring lighthearted relaxing medium-paced
  • Plot- or character-driven? Character
  • Strong character development? Yes
  • Loveable characters? Yes
  • Diverse cast of characters? No
  • Flaws of characters a main focus? Yes

3.5


Expand filter menu Content Warnings

mari1532's review against another edition

Go to review page

adventurous emotional funny hopeful sad tense medium-paced
  • Plot- or character-driven? Character
  • Strong character development? Yes
  • Loveable characters? It's complicated
  • Diverse cast of characters? No
  • Flaws of characters a main focus? It's complicated

3.5

This is the first of Reid's books that I have read and I have to admit that I checked this audiobook out of the library because I saw the movie on sale on Apple TV and wanted to watch it, but I have this desire to read the book before seeing the movie/TV show.

Synopsis: In High School Emma Blair dreamed of a life as far away from her hometown as possible. And when she goes to a party in her junior year of high school she encounters the man she wants to spend the rest of her life with, Jesse. After almost a decade of dating and a single year of marriage though fate intervenes and the only man Emma has ever loved is gone forever. 

As Emma tries to put her life back together she has to challenge everything she thought she knew about herself. As she begins to forage a new identity for herself she also wants to love again and her high school friend Sam might be just the man to teach her that she can.   

Thoughts:
I was very invested in Emma as a character. My favourite part of the book was the growth in her relationship with her sister. It was a truly lovely arch throughout the narrative. I also appreciated the connection that Emma developed with her nieces although I do wish that had been explored a little more. 

I also wish that Sam had made more of an appearance in the story. Reid did an excellent job of conveying how much Emma loves and cares for Sam, but I would have liked to see them interact a little more throughout the story. 

I absolutely did not like Jesse at all. Start to finish. Did I feel bad for him because of the horrific things he endured, sure did. Did it make me like him any better? Sure didn't.


This is an interesting work of literature that held my attention and I was really invested in the outcome. Although it did feel that the cultural standards of domesticity were the driving force of some of Emma's decisions rather than a shifting of her priorities. Overall, not a bad read.  

Expand filter menu Content Warnings