One Day

One Day by David Nicholls

Another book rescued from Mum's chucking-out, and which has had such a lot of press I felt I ought to read it. I enjoyed this one a lot.

Emma and Dexter have just graduated in 1988. They spent a night together, but then went their separate ways. The novel covers what happens to them over the next 20 years, but always as a snapshot of what they are doing on the same day each year. What a clever structure - the kind of thing you wish you'd thought of yourself, but now it's been done.

They're clearly made for each other but it takes them a long time to finally get together, although you know they must do eventually. In the meantime, they try and fail at different careers before finding their feet, have other relationships, make wrong choices. I found Dexter an unlikable character although he improves over time, but I could relate to Emma very much.

Not sure about the ending - it'd be a difficult novel to end well whatever the author decided to do, and I'm not 100% convinced this was the best ending for it.  But overall, and perhaps especially as the characters are my contemporaries (I graduated in 1987) I found the book very enjoyable.