You're the One that I Want by Giovanna Fletcher
| You're the One that I Want by Giovanna Fletcher | |
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| Category: Women's Fiction | |
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Reviewer: Zoe Page
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| Summary: A love triangle with a difference, this is sweet and full of surprises. | |
| Buy? Yes | Borrow? Yes |
| Pages: 400 | Date: May 2014 |
| Publisher: Penguin | |
| ISBN: 978-1405909976 | |
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Maddy, Rob and Ben have been friends forever. There’s nothing unusual about that in general, but it’s less common in literature, perhaps, and I can’t think of another book where two boys and a girl are the trio at the centre of a friendship. As the book starts, Maddy and Rob are about to marry, and Ben stands proudly by as their best man.
That’s where it all becomes a bit more familiar, because who hasn’t come across a story before where someone about to get hitched has second thoughts? Perhaps their bride or groom to be is 'the one', but what if they’ve overlooked someone else in their life? Perhaps a loyal best friend from childhood. Maybe even another member of the wedding party, like the maid of honour or one of the groomsmen. Even with a vaguely familiar premise, I really enjoyed this new and often surprising book.
Set over nearly twenty years of their friendship, this book alternates between Maddy and Ben's recollections of what are largely the same events, since their lives are so intertwined. Unlike in some books, this worked really well and I found it easy to keep track not only of who was telling the story, but also their age at the time – it wasn't as if they were supposed to be nine years old, but sounded just as they did at 26. I think it really helped that the characters aged sequentially as the chapters passed, so it wasn't youth then adulthood then teenage years then school days again.
This is, clearly, a love triangle, but what makes it different is that the two boys are best friends themselves, so after Paris, where everything changes, Ben is still as much involved in their lives as he was before. He can't walk away and leave the pain behind, because doing so would cause even more heartbreak as he'd lose his two best friends in the process.
This book is set up to keep you guessing who Maddy will choose, or if anything will happen to make that decision for her. There are various possible outcomes, from the obvious (she goes through with the wedding or leaves him at the altar) to the more obscure (someone dies or becomes seriously injured; the boys realise they love each other more than Maddy; a job opportunity whisks someone off to a far flung corner of the Earth). In the end, I liked how it finished, especially the epilogue. More and more I'm finding that as much as I’m touched by books, it's those two or three pages in an epilogue that really move me.
Giovanna Fletcher is married to Tom from McFly. This is something that we're told on the back cover, and in the 'about me'. The opening verse is also a McFly lyric. It seemed… over the top. If I were married to a well known name, I’m pretty sure I'd want to succeed and for people to pay attention to me despite that fact, not because of it. It doesn't have any real impact on the story, and you don't imagine he’d have too much impact on the publishing world either way, but it seems an odd thing to repeat.
This aside, I thought the book was good, well planned, and easy to read. It started slowly but picked up quickly and took my interest with it. I’d recommend.
Thanks go to the publishers for supplying this book.
If this sounds good, you may also enjoy Revenge of the Wedding Planner by Sharon Owens and Wedding Season by Katie Fforde.
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