'One Day' by David Nicholls

[MissM]

Has anyone read this? I've just finished it and need someone to discuss it with (book club doesn't meet until March to talk about it)!

I read this book a few months ago and loved it. Nostalgic, great flow of narrative/dialogue and a good bitterweet ending. Like a lot of other posters here, I thought the chapter-per-year thing worked really well, and I liked the way the story loops so that the end and the beginning slightly overlap. As for the characters, I agree that they were ssometimes hallow and one-dimensional in any respects, but that was the characters and not the writing. An excellent book which (I think) deserves the praise it has attracted.

I came on here to post about this. I loved it, stayed with me . I did not see the enging coming either. I found the last few pages very moving. Yes Dexter was annoying , but very human. Loved it!!!

After reading so many positive reviews of this book I was looking forward to a great read but about a third of the way through I discarded it in disgust as thought it utter rubbish.

why katsmum?. what pissed you off?

I thought it was ace btw

Btw am reading his previous book "The Understudy". And i think it's pants. Really crummy. So painful and embarrassing compared to "One Day.

i bought it because it had a lot of hype about it and got a third of the way through the book and just cant find any enthusiasm to continue , just find it rather irritating and it drags on!

Yep, read it because of reviews and hated it. Think his writing is fairly tedious.

I really enjoyed it. I too found the characters annoying but that just made it feel more "real" to me. People are annoying.

Just finished it - really enjoyed it!! Found myself wanting to read it whenever I had the chance.

Enjoyed it enough to be at the negative reviews. It certainly is never going to be a book that is studied in schools or considered an 'intellectual read'. But hardly think that if a book isn't in this group it makes it crap (and with that said there are plenty of books in that category that are crap!!!). Found it funny and interesting, was always on the edge of really really disliking Dexter but I did like Emma, thought she was lovely.

However I came across it without hearing any reviews or anyone rave about it Maybe that had some effect? (often find that if i head into something that I know has had rave reviews it doesn't live up to them iykwim)

enjoyed the 'historical' bit - they finished university the same time as me, so it all resonated.

But absolutely hated the ending - what a cop-out.

I felt cheated, as if the author hadn't bothered to think of a decent ending and got bored with his story.

Am reading it now. Gentle and absorbing enough to take mind off horrible sickky pg. Beginning to want to slap Emma and Dexter though.

I hated it, which really disappointed me because I'd heard great things about it and it could have been so fab.

I found the writing tedious and the characters pathetic, and disliked them both.

The ending was predictable, dull and unoriginal.

I wish it had been great but I just really didn't see what the fuss is about. Though I felt the same about The Slap.

We are discussing this tomorrow night at my reading group, although it's a while since I read it because I got it fairly soon after it started getting lots of hype and five star reviews on Amazon.

I really enjoyed it and I think the main reason was because I'd hit a bit of a wall with reading and couldn't get into any book I picked up and this kind of got my reading mojo back for me.

In some ways I thought it was a bit bubblegum for the brain/chick-lit/Nick Hornby ish - very light, easy to read etc, but the further on with it I got the more it seemed to have more layers of complexity.

I'm not too sure how plausible the whole keeping in touch with someone for years after a one night stand is, but I did find it fascinating and it reminded me a lot of my husband's life - from things he's told me about his past before he knew me.

Dexter was a total git yet I also really liked him and I thought generally most of the characters were pretty well written, although a bit cliched. I liked that though.

For me the end - or rather build up to the end of hte book - was the strongest, when the narrative really became quite intense.

I've just finished. Very dissapointed by ending.

Made me feel old and sad.

And start thinking about the fact that we're all going to DIE.

Don't want to read books that make me feel existential angst, unless they're teaching me something, which this book didn't.

I liked the beginning, then it got more and more chick-lit-written-by-a-bloke.
Thought Dexter was an arsewit and she was annoying.
The premise was better than the reality.
I enjoyed it, but I won't rave about it.

I enjoyed the book - read it about a year ago and still remember it well :)
Yes the main characters were rather annoying but wasn't that half the point? Yes, I knew a main event of that type was likely to happen but isn't that the case with lots of novels? I enjoyed the writing style. I enjoyed the cultural references. I assumed Dexter was at the forefront of modern technology, given his type. For me it was good "chick-lit".

Even his name irritated me. Because he just wouldn't have been called Dexter. He'd have been called Steve. Or Tony. Or Gary.

I enjoyed reading this book. Yes it was light and the characters did have annoying traits, but that made them more real in my opinion. It was different to read a book which is set over such a long period of time and you could picture how the characters grew and matured. I loved how we moved on a year with each chapter.

I did anticipate the "event" from quite early on but it still shocked me when it actually happened.

The only book I've read which has actually made me cry properly. It made me feel nostalgic about the past and made me think about how many of us assume how our futures our mapped out, but really none of us have a clue.

I agree chocadoodle that it is a thought provoking read and I think its lightness is deceptive, there is plenty to recognise, laugh at and remember in there for me- I like the way he lampoons TFI Friday/The Word style tv and all that horrible 90s laddism for a start, also the studenty political stances of Emma.
I liked Emma's journey through her post university wilderness years and I remember well what it was like to have oh so much cooler friends- the scene with her and Dexter on the summer evening near the beginning where she is so cynical about/envious of his lifestyle is priceless.
The sudden writing success is a bit unnecessary I suppose, and the death is possibly predictable, but that coda at the end is just beautifully done and very powerful, imo!!

Well I enjoyed it. Just finished it and haven't seen the film.

As for the incident, I certainly didn't see it coming. Just like Emma I guess and yes that "coda" at the end was beautiful, I thought and it was that relationship with his daughter which made me cry in the end.

I did find the characters one dimensional though and I couldn't quite understand why if Emma had turned out to be this really successful writer, why we never saw any of that. All she seemed to do was potter in her study. If the books were really that successful, there's a whole lot of "stuff" which would have to go with that which just wasn't mentioned.

I do wonder if it would have been so successful without the structure which was what made it really.

I didn't see Emma's demise coming either. The book didn't make me cry or feel emotional (hard bitch, me ) I thought the 're-visit' on 15th July each year was a good idea but the thing that was totally unbelievable is that Emma died on 15th July. Now what would the chances be of that happening in real life? I just felt that that cheapened it all somehow and let it down a bit. Other than that, enjoyed it. It's just a shame that the film couldn't have been a bit more detailed, the film loses a lot of content, compared to the book. For instance, you don't even see Emma and Dexter's wedding, which I think you should have, surely that's one of the main events of the whole story?

Has anyone ever actually played "are you there, Moriarity?"

I found this so disappointing, for itself, but especially after all the hype. A vaguely enjoyable poolside read for me, made me turn the pages, but it didn't make me gasp, or cry, and only occasionally a bit of a giggle emerged.

It was Just So Predictable. I hadn't been in the market for chick lit, and frankly, that it is what I felt I got. As I started it, I said to MIL, that what worried me about it, was how was I not going to be disappointed, how were they not going to make it Oh So Predictable? And I told her that I was (in vain over optimistic hope!) really excited to see what the twist and the unpredictable and more challenging aspects of the book were going to be. She said, oh don't worry, it's not at all predictable, you will be enthralled and surprised and shocked and everything but she insisted that it was absolutely NOT what I was expecting/was concerned it would be.

It was SO what I was grimly expecting. All of it, but my heart sank for all the wrong reasons when we got to The Incident, which was flippin bleedin obviously going to happen! Almost from the off!

Grrr. Glad I only wasted a day and a couple of braincells by the pool reading it quite frankly. Done. Dusted. Quickly forgotten with minimum effort expended.

It's definitely a page-turner due to the structure but I certainly didn't get emotional over it.
I've read many better books that don't get half the praise that One Day got.
I put off reading it for ages because I disliked Starter for Ten so much (both the book and the film) - to be fair it was a lot better than that.