Overall: 4 star review
Summary:
Emma marries her high school sweetheart, Jesse. They move away and live a life of adventure and travel. After a year of marriage, Jesse dies in a helicopter crash. Emma cannot handle her grief, so she moves back to her hometown. Fast forward years later, Emma is settled back in her hometown with a non-adventurous life. She falls in love with Sam a guy from her high school. Sam is the complete opposite of Jesse. Sam has a life in her old hometown and lives a safe existence as a high school teacher. One day, Jesse is found alive after years of being thought of as dead. Now can a person have two true loves? Who will she choose to spend her life with?
My thoughts:
Taylor Jenkins Reid is slowly becoming one of my favorite authors. I decided to read one of her earlier books, and it did not disappoint. I really enjoyed this novel. It is not as good as her new novels, but I really enjoyed it.
This book is character-driven. I love how we see Emma grow as a person and change. All of her books always focus on a lot of characters and change. I always think of them as watching an episode of “This Is Us.” You have a lot of likeable characters and you follow their actions and decisions.
Are we destined to only be able to love one person for our entire lives? Can we have more than one true love? I loved how both of the guys were perfect for her. But as life and situations change, who is perfect for her at that very moment. I think that is why it was so hard to read. Knowing that Emma was going to have to make a really tough decision: one that even the reader cannot decide on which is the best choice for her. I felt bad for Jesse and Sam. I knew that one of them was going to be heartbroken. The story reminded me of The Castaway with Tom Hanks. His wife was with someone new when he returned to the island. This is the story of basically his wife and not Tom.
I kind of found the plot to be a little far-fetched. A guy returns after living on a deserted island. Also, Emma only have 3 days to really make up her mind. I think this type of decision would take a person a lot of therapy to make. After I got passed all of that, the book was great.
Trigger warnings: death of a spouse and grief