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3.64 AVERAGE
3.64 AVERAGE
Audible version - had me extending my time on the elliptical.
I was pretty apprehensive about the idea of a love triangle, the connection Sarina has with Eaomon while she's close to being engaged to Noah, but that's why I love Bethany Chase's writing.
Sarina is complex, flawed and at times soooooo frustrating. I enjoyed being in her world. There's lots of great details about her life as an architect and the importance of her relationships, friends and family.
Highly recommend!
I was pretty apprehensive about the idea of a love triangle, the connection Sarina has with Eaomon while she's close to being engaged to Noah, but that's why I love Bethany Chase's writing.
Sarina is complex, flawed and at times soooooo frustrating. I enjoyed being in her world. There's lots of great details about her life as an architect and the importance of her relationships, friends and family.
Highly recommend!
The One That Got Away is an enjoyable romance with flawed but likable characters. In tone and scope it reminded me a bit of Emily Giffin's books, although Chase isn't quite that assured as an author. The story centers on Sarina, an up-and-coming architect in Austin. (I enjoyed the references to Austin restaurants and landmarks, but I wasn't surprised to learn Chase isn't an Austinite herself, if only because she never mentioned the traffic or the fear that Austin is being ruined by the influx of newbies!) The hero is Eamon, an Olympic gold-medal swimmer, who had a very brief fling with Sarina years ago and comes back into her life as a friend-of-a-friend and potential client. Chase did a good job of creating a believable triangle although Eamon didn't seem fully believable to me.
Spoiler
One of my pet peeves in romance/ chic lit books is an abrupt ending and this one definitely left me feeling cheated in that regard. Authors need to give readers at least a few pages to savor the hard-won relationship before they sign off.Spoiler
Ok. I read half and skimmed the rest because I just stopped caring. Promising beginning that just draaaagged on for way too long.
Main character had a fun and relatable voice, until it came to her choices and decision making...good for a beach read though.
This is my first review of a book from Penguin's First to Read program. I'm so nervous!
Romance and I have a love/ hate relationship. I love the thought of it, but hate reading about it, because you've guess it... I don't have it! The One that Got Away is romance chic lit to the tee. Sarina has two wonderful guys, one she is supposed to be committed to, Noah, and the one that got away, Eamon. She has wonderful friends and family, plus if the two guys weren't problems enough, she has to deal with job troubles and family woes.
So on to my opinion. I really enjoyed it until the end. The struggles that Sarina faced were real and easy to picture having to deal with. The humor was very subtle and gave the book a light easy going feeling. The ending started getting to me because of the drama Sarina was causing for herself. I think this was mainly a problem, because it is a common trait in women, including myself, to make things worse by over thinking and making a mountain out of a mole hill. The last thing that was the most horrible was the very end. I didn't want it, I didn't expect it..... I WANTED MORE. I kept scrolling in hopes of more pages, but alas I will have to imagine the rest of the happy ending and hope we all find our own Eamon or at least Newman. :)
Romance and I have a love/ hate relationship. I love the thought of it, but hate reading about it, because you've guess it... I don't have it! The One that Got Away is romance chic lit to the tee. Sarina has two wonderful guys, one she is supposed to be committed to, Noah, and the one that got away, Eamon. She has wonderful friends and family, plus if the two guys weren't problems enough, she has to deal with job troubles and family woes.
So on to my opinion. I really enjoyed it until the end. The struggles that Sarina faced were real and easy to picture having to deal with. The humor was very subtle and gave the book a light easy going feeling. The ending started getting to me because of the drama Sarina was causing for herself. I think this was mainly a problem, because it is a common trait in women, including myself, to make things worse by over thinking and making a mountain out of a mole hill. The last thing that was the most horrible was the very end. I didn't want it, I didn't expect it..... I WANTED MORE. I kept scrolling in hopes of more pages, but alas I will have to imagine the rest of the happy ending and hope we all find our own Eamon or at least Newman. :)
Such a sweet story, and a quick and fun read. What's next, Bethany? Because I'm reading it. ;)
I enjoyed this book. The description said that Emily Giffin fans would enjoy it, and that did not disappoint! Scroll below for more thoughts on the book (spoiler alert though!)
I was hooked with the plot and the romance of it. I really enjoy Emily Giffin books and this felt like one of hers--so I was suckered in. The only thing I didn't like about Eamon is at the end how he gave her the cold shoulder. It was like, how could you after what you did to her back in college. I felt for Sarina, but it showed how you stick with what your heart is telling you and love wins. Can't wait for the next book!!
I was hooked with the plot and the romance of it. I really enjoy Emily Giffin books and this felt like one of hers--so I was suckered in. The only thing I didn't like about Eamon is at the end how he gave her the cold shoulder. It was like, how could you after what you did to her back in college. I felt for Sarina, but it showed how you stick with what your heart is telling you and love wins. Can't wait for the next book!!
Provided by NetGalley.
What a voice! Bethany Chase drew me in immediately. The opening is quoted in many other reviews,and in the blurbs; let me pull up a couple more quotes that stood out.
Here's a bit about the boyfriend who got away:
His face still has that openness that invites you to slide a chair next to him and tell him all the stories even your best friends don't know. Isn't that a thousand times more visceral than a catalogue of his hot features or his sexy voice?
And she understands about the pain of grief:
Nicole sat me down on our limp green futon one evening, with the kind of well-meaning arrogance that only a 21yr old could muster, to tell me she was worried that I wasn't "letting my pain out."
As if it was an infection that would heal up all tidy and new once the pus was released. Instead, it's like groundwater. Pooling underneath my skin, seeping to the surface here and there, now and then. Endlessly replenished. Easy to forget about, until it startles me with the depth of it. . . .
And one more:
Because I finally understood what [my mother] had tried to explain to me so many times when I was eye-deep in the morass of my high school relationship, or my college one: kindness only mattered when it came naturally. Not when it was handed out with my vagina as the reward, or my forgiveness for some selfish transgression.
I wanted to talk up front about how good I thought the writing was, because this book almost, but didn't quite, work for me. And it is a very strong almost. Chase involved me in the life of Sarina, who sees the world in a very different way than I do. Made her sympathetic, even when she is casually dismissive of spiritual matters, when she's getting snot-nosed drunk as a way of dealing with rage and pain, when she makes discussions of the possibility of future grandchildren all about herself, specifically "ownership of her reproductive organs."
Sarina was taken by two-years-younger Eamon during a fling eight years ago, and she's never forgotten him, though she's engaged to a wonderful guy named Noah, who has wonderful parents. She's got loving, loyal friends, and a terrific step-dad, all of whom give her support and advice as she tries to deal with being pulled in two directions.
She has other issues, the strongest (besides the title dilemma) being a rage-fueled grief at the loss of her beloved mother when she was young. She has a way of steadying herself by reductionism (it's all just dopamine) that doesn't quite work; she tries to negotiate honestly between her determined love for Noah and her old romance with Eamon, while lying to herself in little ways. And therefore lying to others.
I know many confident women of the younger generation who will admire her as centered. To me she was self-centered, in that in every situation, she is constantly taking her own emotional temperature to see if she can handle this or that action or decision: and so she gets angry with Noah's parents when they bring up grandchildren and the possibility of her staying home to raise them; she rejects her step-father's plea to come home to see him, because she can't deal with being in her mother's house; she hurts people without being aware of the pain she's causing, because she is so closely monitoring her own emotional state that she can't see what she's doing to them.
With that much inward dialogue, I flat out could not accept the last third, almost the last half of the book, which makes it feel like it's dragging, when actually there is a great deal going on. But the non-forward movement of what is obvious to the reader with respect to the most crucial emotional issue made it feel unwieldy.
That said, I want to go back up to the admiration of her graceful, humorous, witty prose. So much vividness, freshness, so much style! I don't know that I would reread this one, but I am definitely going to be on the watch for her next.
What a voice! Bethany Chase drew me in immediately. The opening is quoted in many other reviews,and in the blurbs; let me pull up a couple more quotes that stood out.
Here's a bit about the boyfriend who got away:
His face still has that openness that invites you to slide a chair next to him and tell him all the stories even your best friends don't know. Isn't that a thousand times more visceral than a catalogue of his hot features or his sexy voice?
And she understands about the pain of grief:
Nicole sat me down on our limp green futon one evening, with the kind of well-meaning arrogance that only a 21yr old could muster, to tell me she was worried that I wasn't "letting my pain out."
As if it was an infection that would heal up all tidy and new once the pus was released. Instead, it's like groundwater. Pooling underneath my skin, seeping to the surface here and there, now and then. Endlessly replenished. Easy to forget about, until it startles me with the depth of it. . . .
And one more:
Because I finally understood what [my mother] had tried to explain to me so many times when I was eye-deep in the morass of my high school relationship, or my college one: kindness only mattered when it came naturally. Not when it was handed out with my vagina as the reward, or my forgiveness for some selfish transgression.
I wanted to talk up front about how good I thought the writing was, because this book almost, but didn't quite, work for me. And it is a very strong almost. Chase involved me in the life of Sarina, who sees the world in a very different way than I do. Made her sympathetic, even when she is casually dismissive of spiritual matters, when she's getting snot-nosed drunk as a way of dealing with rage and pain, when she makes discussions of the possibility of future grandchildren all about herself, specifically "ownership of her reproductive organs."
Sarina was taken by two-years-younger Eamon during a fling eight years ago, and she's never forgotten him, though she's engaged to a wonderful guy named Noah, who has wonderful parents. She's got loving, loyal friends, and a terrific step-dad, all of whom give her support and advice as she tries to deal with being pulled in two directions.
She has other issues, the strongest (besides the title dilemma) being a rage-fueled grief at the loss of her beloved mother when she was young. She has a way of steadying herself by reductionism (it's all just dopamine) that doesn't quite work; she tries to negotiate honestly between her determined love for Noah and her old romance with Eamon, while lying to herself in little ways. And therefore lying to others.
I know many confident women of the younger generation who will admire her as centered. To me she was self-centered, in that in every situation, she is constantly taking her own emotional temperature to see if she can handle this or that action or decision: and so she gets angry with Noah's parents when they bring up grandchildren and the possibility of her staying home to raise them; she rejects her step-father's plea to come home to see him, because she can't deal with being in her mother's house; she hurts people without being aware of the pain she's causing, because she is so closely monitoring her own emotional state that she can't see what she's doing to them.
With that much inward dialogue, I flat out could not accept the last third, almost the last half of the book
Spoiler
Specifically her total surprise that she is in love with Eamon. Everybody else knew it!That said, I want to go back up to the admiration of her graceful, humorous, witty prose. So much vividness, freshness, so much style! I don't know that I would reread this one, but I am definitely going to be on the watch for her next.
I liked it, but I hated both of the guys that Sarina lusted after. She could have done better, and if she were a real person that I knew, I'd tell her that.