One Day by David Nicholls

[minalanser]

July 15. Saint Swithin’s Day.

A day I’d never heard of, but after reading the fiction novel One Day by English writer David Nicholls, it’s a day I’ll never forget.

July 15, 1988. The day Emma Morley and Dexter Mayhew met, well, not technically met. Emma had seen him hanging around Modern Languages at the University. She’d met him once before. How could she forget that straight-nosed, dark haired, unfortunately handsome Bourgeois? And now Dexter Mayhew, in all his devil-may-care glory was in her bed, in her tiny dorm room, the morning after graduation.

They hadn’t actually slept together. Well, technically they had but it was with an awkward arm under her shoulders as his circulation got cut off. Dexter peered around the politically opinionated posters plastered over her walls. He knew her type, and Emma Morley was not the sort of girl he spent the night with. Yet, with her too large glasses and shrewd glare, Emma Morley was unlike any girl he’d ever met.

“So shall we do something then? Me and you, I mean?”
“Yeah. Alright,” he said. “Let’s do something.”

July 15, 1988. The day that would define the next twenty years of Em and Dex’s life.

Witty, observant, and bitter-sweet, Nicholls brings us into the psyche of two people who were not quite destined to be together, but who can’t seem to live without each other. Over the course of twenty years, readers catch a glimpse of Em and Dex on July 15 of each year. No matter where they are, whom they are with, or whom they’re without, Em and Dex trudge through the joys and tragedies, successes and failures, that life doles out incongruous to hopes and dreams.

Through the relationship between these flawed and endearing characters, Nicholls takes us through the layers of expectation, disappointment, and desire that impede the heart and, with hilarious and addictive writing, illustrates what lies at its core. Love in its most raw and satisfying form.