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A review by my_corner_of_the_library
The One by John Marrs
mysterious
slow-paced
- Plot- or character-driven? Plot
- Strong character development? No
- Loveable characters? No
- Diverse cast of characters? Yes
- Flaws of characters a main focus? Yes
1.5
Ok, who's ready for a rant? Because I HATED this book...
I'm going to start by talking about a couple general things that bothered me and the go through this POV by POV...and be WARNED: TONS OF SPOILERS! Because I'm going to be ranting about this book and feel like I have to use spoilers to properly convey my frustration.
The Writing
This is by far one of the worst cases of "men writing women" I've ever seen. I am NOT one of those readers that believes authors should "stay in their lane" and not write outside of their experience, but after reading this book I firmly believe that Marrs has NO place writing women. Every single woman in this book was shallower than hell and at some point each one was unnecessarily focused on diet or weight. If the point of this book had been about body image then this would be understandable, but every time this came up it was completely unnecessary and inserted in a way that felt like the author saying, "See, I understand what women think about." This even to the point where our, supposedly, incredibly intelligent, wordly, and successful Ellie felt the only thing she had to talk about with her match were the benefits of her latest fad diet.
Next, I suggest that you don't go into this book looking for any depth, because it's not there. It felt as though the author pulled a bunch of different stereotypes and spent the entire book telling us what those stereotypes were. I never felt as though I was getting a deep understanding of any of these characters, just reading a surface level description of them.
Also, how come every single main character in this book was estranged from their family? I'll go into more detail with some of them, but it was really getting old how not a single character had a healthy relationship anywhere.
Mandy POV
This is probably the POV that I hated the least and felt the most empathy for. Don't get me wrong, I still struggled reading her POV, but not nearly as much as the others. My biggest gripe is how she blew off her family without a second thought. One meeting with two of her sisters where they suggest that getting inseminated with the semen of a man you don't know at the suggestion of his mother, whom you barely know, and suddenly Mandy decides to cut off contact with her entire family completely. Why? Well...because. That's really the only reason we are given.
Also, HOW did Pat and Chloe manage to kidnap the baby and not only take him to Richard's nursing home AND "hide" at their own cottage and not have the police catch on?!?!? What kind of lazy ass detectives were working on this case that they just showed up to Pat and Chloe's houses, found them empty, and gave up from there? They didn't bother to check the next two most obvious places for a premature baby that could be in danger for it's life?!?!
Christopher POV
This POV pissed me off more and more as the book went on. It was very very clear that from the beginning, the author put very little effort into researching anything about actual serial killer or psychopath behavior. This was the most poorly stereotyped serial killer I can think of, and that's just where it started. It went downhill fast from there.
It became very clear very quickly that Marrs wanted a psychopath in his book for the twist of it, with no intention of actually carrying it out. Christopher would regularly flip flop on many of his psychopath characteristics. He would regularly talk about how he could never read people and was terrible at reading emotions, and then in the same breath talk about what an expert manipulator he was and telling us all about how he was reading the body language of everyone around him. I'm sorry, but THAT'S NOT HOW THAT WORKS. How is it that he can't read emotion and body language one moment, and the next he's an expert? No, just no...
Then we have the, "Your love cured my psychopathy," plot point. Um...NO!! That is not how that works, that's not how any of this works! A psychopath cannot just cure their psychopathy, let's just get that clear. And they REALLY can't cure it just by falling in love, if they are even capable of that. They don't just spontaneously develop empathy and compassion they way Christopher does, and the way it's portrayed is SOOOO far from plausible, let alone accurate, that I wanted to throw the book across the room.
I'm not even going to touch on the WORST police officer in history: Amy...
Jade POV
Jade was probably my least favorite POV of the lot, and yet somehow ended up having the most satisfying ending.
We never learning anything significant about Jade. Anything. She starts off by talking about the fact that she went to university but is having problems finding a job, and because of that she is in major debt. Let's start there. I challenge anyone to tell me anything about Jade's history, like....what was her major? What kind of job is she looking for? Why is she having trouble finding this? etc.
Then, just as she finished paying off ONE of her credit cards, she decides to quit her job and fly to Australia unannounced?!?! Putting herself even further into debt, even though she just went on about how ashamed she was because she was going to have to file bankruptcy at 21, and blamed it on not being able to find a better job?!?!?! AND she decides to make this trip without even informing her family before she leaves...just takes off. Then basically cuts off all contact with them. She even goes so far as to marry a dying man and grieve his loss without ever telling her parents that she got married....This was simultaneously the most boring and most infuriating storyline of the lot.
She didn't deserve either of the brothers.
Nick POV
Did this man know the definition of the word honesty? Because I have to wonder. This guy's entire plot was based on the fact that he had no idea how to tell a single person in his life the truth about a fucking thing. He lied to Sally then he lied to Alex and so on.
That's all I have to say about this storyline.
Ellie POV
If Ellie hadn't been a shell of a character and had been given some personality outside of her bland stereotype, she probably would have been my favorite character and storyline. Instead, the character with the most promise ended up being a nothing of a character that was only there to introduce and different character and his over complicated RIDICULOUS scheme.
The fact that her company crashes makes no sense to me. Don't get me wrong, it would have IF Matt hadn't live streamed the entire conversation. If he had allowed the mis-matches to happen, told Ellie to fuck with her, and then leaked it to the press that would have been a great plan. But by announcing to the world himself what he had done all that needed to happen was let him walk out of the office, and then Ellie could have gotten her expansive tech team to rerun all the matches that had been done in the last year and send out notifications to the ones that were mismatched. Company saved, reputation untarnished. Instead...I'm not even going to go into it.
Conclusion
I hated this book, and if I hadn't been able to read it so quickly I would have DNF'd. This was not worth it and I would not recommend to anyone.
I'm going to start by talking about a couple general things that bothered me and the go through this POV by POV...and be WARNED: TONS OF SPOILERS! Because I'm going to be ranting about this book and feel like I have to use spoilers to properly convey my frustration.
The Writing
This is by far one of the worst cases of "men writing women" I've ever seen. I am NOT one of those readers that believes authors should "stay in their lane" and not write outside of their experience, but after reading this book I firmly believe that Marrs has NO place writing women. Every single woman in this book was shallower than hell and at some point each one was unnecessarily focused on diet or weight. If the point of this book had been about body image then this would be understandable, but every time this came up it was completely unnecessary and inserted in a way that felt like the author saying, "See, I understand what women think about." This even to the point where our, supposedly, incredibly intelligent, wordly, and successful Ellie felt the only thing she had to talk about with her match were the benefits of her latest fad diet.
Next, I suggest that you don't go into this book looking for any depth, because it's not there. It felt as though the author pulled a bunch of different stereotypes and spent the entire book telling us what those stereotypes were. I never felt as though I was getting a deep understanding of any of these characters, just reading a surface level description of them.
Also, how come every single main character in this book was estranged from their family? I'll go into more detail with some of them, but it was really getting old how not a single character had a healthy relationship anywhere.
Mandy POV
This is probably the POV that I hated the least and felt the most empathy for. Don't get me wrong, I still struggled reading her POV, but not nearly as much as the others. My biggest gripe is how she blew off her family without a second thought. One meeting with two of her sisters where they suggest that getting inseminated with the semen of a man you don't know at the suggestion of his mother, whom you barely know, and suddenly Mandy decides to cut off contact with her entire family completely. Why? Well...because. That's really the only reason we are given.
Also, HOW did Pat and Chloe manage to kidnap the baby and not only take him to Richard's nursing home AND "hide" at their own cottage and not have the police catch on?!?!? What kind of lazy ass detectives were working on this case that they just showed up to Pat and Chloe's houses, found them empty, and gave up from there? They didn't bother to check the next two most obvious places for a premature baby that could be in danger for it's life?!?!
Christopher POV
This POV pissed me off more and more as the book went on. It was very very clear that from the beginning, the author put very little effort into researching anything about actual serial killer or psychopath behavior. This was the most poorly stereotyped serial killer I can think of, and that's just where it started. It went downhill fast from there.
It became very clear very quickly that Marrs wanted a psychopath in his book for the twist of it, with no intention of actually carrying it out. Christopher would regularly flip flop on many of his psychopath characteristics. He would regularly talk about how he could never read people and was terrible at reading emotions, and then in the same breath talk about what an expert manipulator he was and telling us all about how he was reading the body language of everyone around him. I'm sorry, but THAT'S NOT HOW THAT WORKS. How is it that he can't read emotion and body language one moment, and the next he's an expert? No, just no...
Then we have the, "Your love cured my psychopathy," plot point. Um...NO!! That is not how that works, that's not how any of this works! A psychopath cannot just cure their psychopathy, let's just get that clear. And they REALLY can't cure it just by falling in love, if they are even capable of that. They don't just spontaneously develop empathy and compassion they way Christopher does, and the way it's portrayed is SOOOO far from plausible, let alone accurate, that I wanted to throw the book across the room.
I'm not even going to touch on the WORST police officer in history: Amy...
Jade POV
Jade was probably my least favorite POV of the lot, and yet somehow ended up having the most satisfying ending.
We never learning anything significant about Jade. Anything. She starts off by talking about the fact that she went to university but is having problems finding a job, and because of that she is in major debt. Let's start there. I challenge anyone to tell me anything about Jade's history, like....what was her major? What kind of job is she looking for? Why is she having trouble finding this? etc.
Then, just as she finished paying off ONE of her credit cards, she decides to quit her job and fly to Australia unannounced?!?! Putting herself even further into debt, even though she just went on about how ashamed she was because she was going to have to file bankruptcy at 21, and blamed it on not being able to find a better job?!?!?! AND she decides to make this trip without even informing her family before she leaves...just takes off. Then basically cuts off all contact with them. She even goes so far as to marry a dying man and grieve his loss without ever telling her parents that she got married....This was simultaneously the most boring and most infuriating storyline of the lot.
She didn't deserve either of the brothers.
Nick POV
Did this man know the definition of the word honesty? Because I have to wonder. This guy's entire plot was based on the fact that he had no idea how to tell a single person in his life the truth about a fucking thing. He lied to Sally then he lied to Alex and so on.
That's all I have to say about this storyline.
Ellie POV
If Ellie hadn't been a shell of a character and had been given some personality outside of her bland stereotype, she probably would have been my favorite character and storyline. Instead, the character with the most promise ended up being a nothing of a character that was only there to introduce and different character and his over complicated RIDICULOUS scheme.
The fact that her company crashes makes no sense to me. Don't get me wrong, it would have IF Matt hadn't live streamed the entire conversation. If he had allowed the mis-matches to happen, told Ellie to fuck with her, and then leaked it to the press that would have been a great plan. But by announcing to the world himself what he had done all that needed to happen was let him walk out of the office, and then Ellie could have gotten her expansive tech team to rerun all the matches that had been done in the last year and send out notifications to the ones that were mismatched. Company saved, reputation untarnished. Instead...I'm not even going to go into it.
Conclusion
I hated this book, and if I hadn't been able to read it so quickly I would have DNF'd. This was not worth it and I would not recommend to anyone.