Review: One Day

One Day by David Nicholls

My rating: 4 of 5 stars



Why I really liked the book (thus the four stars):
1) Clever concept; clever way of presenting an "on/off love story" [i.e. what the characters did for the same day(July 15)in a span of two decades];
2) Witty dialogue (seems to be a trademark of most British authors I've read recently); and
3) Insightful quips (again, another trademark of quite a number of British authors).

Why I gave this book four, not five, stars:
1) Some of the characters are so one-dimensional they seem to be unreal;
2) Predictability (boy and girl who end up as best friends then end up together, then one of them...spoiler alert). I'm sure I have encountered the exact same story somewhere.
3) The characters get so predictably annoying at times, but I guess the author intended them to be this way (so they could resemble real people).

All in all, I enjoyed reading this book. Very well-written and all that. While the characters are a bit (I repeat) predictable, they are unforgettable. Now I know why they say the film version of One Day was a disappointment. You can't just reduce 435 pages of cleverness and wit into two hours of Hollywood-version dialogue/imagery.



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