I read the book 'One Day' this week, by David Nicholls, and everyone keeps asking me how it is, they've heard so much about it and they want to know! And in all honesty the first answer that always comes to mind is that there is a reason why it is one of the top best selling books in the charts at the moment!
For me it was really amazing, beautiful even, a moving tale of two people whose lives intertwine countlessly over twenty years, building such a cemented relationship of friendship and love into one.


I think what I partly like and in the same way hate is the fact that their lives aren't perfect - both of them are lost, fuck up, build themselves up high in ambition and yet find them as far away from the dream as possible - their's isn't one of perfect romance and idealism, its hard and it takes them nearly twenty years to get where they belong, together, before it gets cruely taken away from them all over again. I like this because it makes it that more real, you can read it and actually get into the character and how they feel because we have all been there, we have all been up and down in everyway. But in the same way I found myself thinking wow I wish I had this, I wish I was part of them, but when I think over it I think actually how I don't think I do, what they go through and how long it all takes is heart-wrenching as well as romantic, in escapism you still look out for that perfect, fairy-tale romance.


The style in which the book was written is both surprising and frustrating in my opinion - I like the new, original idea of it - focussing on the same day of each year for the twenty years they know eachother, but I found I was getting so into the story of that year that I didn't want it to quite end at the end of the day, there would be so much uncovered that I hated having to leave it behind and skip ahead to the next year where all the gaps weren't filled in and you just had to 'go with it'. But then I also appreciate, how tightly the focus is kept on Em and Dex, by having that one day each year we are continuously reminded of the significance of that day and their relationship and I thought it almost just made you sit there counting down the years before they end up together and they inevitablly have to, so each year is a view on how closer they're getting to their destination and there is more impact built up from that.


Although there were aspects of the book I didn't like, such as her death and how it was so quickly swept under the carpet on that last day, I know that it is going to be a book, and film, that I am going to keep thinking about and keep coming back to. It is up there with a few select books that have really done it for me, that have moved me in a romantic way that makes me want to stay connected to the story as much as possible - as much as 'The Time Traveller's Wife' does, I know both the book and the film (an excellent, true to story adaptation) will stick with me.