Book Reviews #23

One Day - David Nicholls.

Thought I should read this before the film came out...managed to be halfway through when the reviewers starting taking pot shots at the lead actress's mangling of a Yorkshire accent so I don't know if I shall get to see the film or not, maybe now that I've finished the book I should read the film reviews and see if it's actually worth seeing.

Anyway, on to the book...it's good but I don't get it.

The actual story for one thing and then all the gushing about it.

There are other authors out there, writing in this genre, who are just as good, if not better and the review listing on Amazon is full of effusive praise for this book from said authors.

As I said, it's good, the characters are well written, the history gels - the story spans 20 years or so & it's the 20 years that pretty much match up to my own history, so it rings eerily to me, there's good humour...but I still don't get it.

The story starts as Emma and Dexter are finishing university, it's St. Swithin's Day and after that first chapter we meet them on the same day year after year, which could give quite a skewed view of their lives but doesn't seem to.

I think what bugged me about the actual story was that from the details in the first chapter I couldn't understand how there was such a deep relationship between Emma and Dex. It didn't add up. It was only in the last few chapters when more was explained about the period betwwen the first St. Swithin's day and the second, that the storyline made sense.

So to pararphrase a couple of the reviews from Amazon, it is "a moving and feel good read" (News of the World) but I don't agree with the idea that it's "destined to become a modern classic" (Daily Mirror).

Try it and see what you think, it's not ground breaking but neither is it rubbish.