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A review by lilbanne
One True Loves by Taylor Jenkins Reid
4.0
This was an exciting and sometimes frustrating read. One True Loves delves into the complexities of love and grief. The story is about Emma, a woman whose husband and the love of her life is lost at sea during a helicopter accident. Jesse is presumed dead, and Emma painfully grieves his loss. After two years, Emma starts a relationship with Sam, the man she knew as a boy in her hometown. Sam is very different than Jesse, but Emma and Sam comfortably begin a life together, only to have it shaken when Jesse is found alive! What does Emma do? It’s all so complicated.
What I liked about this read is that it does not shy away from how messy grief can be. Trauma and grief change you. The very core of who you were before your loss is different. This is absolutely relatable material for me. Everything about you can shift dramatically. Can a love of your former self fit with your new self? Who knows? But this is why divorce rates are so high after a major trauma has occurred in a relationship. You are not the same people anymore. While you fit together like a puzzle before, you might not work together in the present because each of you has fundamentally changed.
Emma makes questionable choices, but that’s what it is to be human. We aren’t perfect, and neither are characters in books. This wasn’t my favourite read by Taylor Jenkins Reid, but it still provided some excellent food for thought. Really appreciated the great grief quotes.
“You know that you will never truly be free of the grief. You know that it is something you must learn to live with, something you manage. You start to understand that grief is chronic. That it’s more about remission and relapse than it is about a cure. What that means to you is that you can’t simply wait for it to be over. You have to move through it, like swimming in an undertow.”
What I liked about this read is that it does not shy away from how messy grief can be. Trauma and grief change you. The very core of who you were before your loss is different. This is absolutely relatable material for me. Everything about you can shift dramatically. Can a love of your former self fit with your new self? Who knows? But this is why divorce rates are so high after a major trauma has occurred in a relationship. You are not the same people anymore. While you fit together like a puzzle before, you might not work together in the present because each of you has fundamentally changed.
Emma makes questionable choices, but that’s what it is to be human. We aren’t perfect, and neither are characters in books. This wasn’t my favourite read by Taylor Jenkins Reid, but it still provided some excellent food for thought. Really appreciated the great grief quotes.
“You know that you will never truly be free of the grief. You know that it is something you must learn to live with, something you manage. You start to understand that grief is chronic. That it’s more about remission and relapse than it is about a cure. What that means to you is that you can’t simply wait for it to be over. You have to move through it, like swimming in an undertow.”