A review by nicolecurlsuptoread
One True Loves by Taylor Jenkins Reid

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. 
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