The One plus One

Author: Jojo Moyes

Genre: Adult, Romance, Contemporary, Fiction

Publisher: Pamela Dorman Books

Year: 2014

Ranking: 3,8/5

  

Synopsis

One single mom. One chaotic family. One quirky stranger. One irresistible love story from the New York Times bestselling author of Me Before You

Suppose your life sucks. A lot. Your husband has done a vanishing act, your teenage stepson is being bullied and your math whiz daughter has a once-in-a-lifetime opportunity that you can’t afford to pay for. That’s Jess’s life in a nutshell—until an unexpected knight-in-shining-armor offers to rescue them. Only Jess’s knight turns out to be Geeky Ed, the obnoxious tech millionaire whose vacation home she happens to clean. But Ed has big problems of his own, and driving the dysfunctional family to the Math Olympiad feels like his first unselfish act in ages... maybe ever. 

The Author

Jojo Moyes is a British novelist. Moyes studied at Royal Holloway, University of London. She won a bursary financed by The Independent newspaper to study journalism at City University and subsequently worked for The Independent for 10 years. In 2001 she became a full time novelist. 

Moyes' novel Foreign Fruit won the Romantic Novelists' Association (RNA) Romantic Novel of the Year in 2004. She is married to journalist Charles Arthur and has three children.

Personal Experience with This Book

The reason I decided to read this book is its author. I read "Me before You" almost a year ago and the truth is that I loved the book. With this book I can say that Jojo Moyes is one of those authors from I will read everything she releases and, also plan to continue reading all the books she has published already.

The story begins with Ed. Ed is a successful entrepreneur but has a weakness, pretty women, and this weakness is costing him dearly. Ed tries to avoid conflicts and when he feels uncomfortable he just evades the situations and start looking for a way to get out of them at all costs but also, he is a very good person. On the other hand we have Jess and her family composed by Nicky and Tanzie. Jess has gone through hard times in her life; she is a single mother of two and spends a lot of time working to give them the best. This is not everything, Nicky is “different” and his classmates do not leave him alone, he has to deal with bullying throughout most of the book and that made his personality more reserved. Tanzie is a bright girl and very positive and innocent. She cares a lot about his brother and her mother and, although he has not behaved best with her, she loves her dad very much. Now, because of some situations I will not mention in this review, the four of them end up undertaking a journey that practically changed their lives. Ed and Jess mainly, discover a lot about themselves and begin to look differently towards each other.

It was a very nice book. It made me feel tenderness, especially for the family part. I think this kind of stories is always going to made me feel a lot of tenderness and happiness. At first I could not connect with the characters and the whole beginning of the trip and that seemed not real. But as the trip progresses and the interaction between the 4 characters goes on, the book takes a very interesting way. The second half is quite interesting and keeps the reader glued to the story.

What I liked the most about this book were the children. Tanzie and Nicky go through hard things for their age but, nevertheless, especially Tanzie, always tell themselves that everything will be better and the people who do well get good things to happen to them. I think the great transformation of the whole book was Nicky, I love this child and that he does not speak very much. But he loves his sister and would do anything for Jess, even thought she is not his mother.

What I did not like about the book was, not feeling the story real at the beginning. There were many "coincidences" and the romance was too fast for my taste. These two fell in love and could not live without each other after only a week... unreal. Well I guess the circumstances in which the book takes place justify this point; almost reaching the end you realize that it is true love. I gave the book a 3.8 because of tenderness and I really liked the story. It is not a book I would recommend with my eyes closed to everyone like "Me before you" but, it is a good book. I will definitely continue reading more of Jojo Moyes's books.