‘Let me finish, will you? But i had a really nice time anyway, I’ve not done a lot of… that kind of thing. I’ve not made a study of it, not like you, but it was nice. I think you’re nice, Dex, when you want to be. And maybe it’s just bad timing or whatever, but I think you should head off to China or India or whatever and find yourself, and I’ll get on quite happily with things here. I don’t want to come with you, I don’t want weekly postcards. I don’t even want your phone number. I don’t want to get married and have your babies either, or even have another fling. We had one really, really nice night together, that’s all. I’ll always remember it. And if we bump into each other sometime in the future at a party or something, then that’s fine too. We’ll just have a friendly chat. We won’t be embarrassed ‘cause you’ve had your hand down my top and there’ll be no awkwardness and we’ll be, whatever, “cool” about it, alright? Me and you. We’ll just be…friends. Agreed?’ One Day, David Nicholls, 2009
This has been on my TBR since I watched the netflix adaptation. This book is truly fantastic. I was expecting to be disappointed by this, since I watched the show first and truly adored it, and that is exactly what happened with Sally Rooney’s Normal People AND Conversation with Friends (fan of the adaptations, and not the novels so much). However, I really really enjoyed this. A twenty year best friends to lovers arc is right up my alley. The story starts when they’re 22 and at their college graduation. They like each other and are about to hook up, but then decide not to and just sleep in bed together for the night. This sparks a twenty year long journey where we get to see their friendship as well as their personal lives and relationships with other people. First of all, I think the whole concept of it being the same day each year for twenty years is just so good, and I like how strict to format it is. It adds in enough stuff on that one day but lets a lot of other things be up to the reader’s imagination. For example, (and spoiler), we never actually see Emma and Dexter hook up or have sex because it occurs in the space in between. It’s just fun.
Emma and Dexter are truly such ordinary people and yet David Nicholls writes about their friendship and love as if it’s so profound and one of a kind that it actually really warms my heart. Emma is so headstrong and political and listens to indie music and she wants to change the world (or her own small part of it). She really cares about reading and education. She calls Dexter’s father a fascist to his face. She isn’t experienced in relationships or sex and lacks a lot of self confidence. She dates the wrong guys, won’t stand up for herself in the ways that matter, and is the other woman in an affair with an older man. She hides behind herself. I love that although she seems like an archetype of a certain type of person, she just feels so real and relatable in a way that’s so specific, despite being a common “type of person”. This is probably because she is insecure to the point of becoming unlikeable at many moments, she’s someone that you just want to grab and shake verbally in the way that Dexter does to her. DEXTER. Oh Dexter. He’s the worst but still quite likeable. His confidence and perhaps narcissism balances Emma so well. I think it’s a good balance of finding his actions on the page frustrating and sometimes repulsive but still truly someone you can empathize with. He’s more self aware than he comes across to be at first. Even through both of the character’s (mostly Dexter’s) major flaws and annoyances, you also really really care about them and want to root for them. This is a friendship that I can really believe.
It's over 400 pages and only took me a few days to read. Not sure if it’s actually fast paced or if I just liked it so much I couldn’t put it down. I think I just really enjoyed reading about these two people who have this instant connection but just can’t quite seem to get it right romantically over the years. But it doesn’t feel like slowburn necessarily, because the way it's written, I’m not even craving them to just get together, like reading about their platonic moments and friendship and time apart from each other is just as fulfilling.
It's actually a bit ridiculous because there’s another line in the book in one of Dexter’s letters to Emma where he’s telling her he’s finding the book she got him kind of boring but then concedes “when will you stop trying to educate me? Never I hope.” That actually made me lose my mind. Immediately thought of the Book of Love by the Magnetic Fields. Such a wonderful song and completely forgot that I discovered that song and the band BECAUSE it’s in the One Day show!! God. “The book of love is long and boring // but I love it when you read to me and you can read me anything” is possibly one of the most romantic lyrics of all time it makes me sick. Like genuinely nauseous. Makes me want to drop to my knees and bang my fists on the floor screaming in agony. Chose the quote at the top for the same reason. You know I underlined the fuck out of that. Once again reliving dark flashbacks. I would recommend One Day to anyone who enjoys a good romance or maybe just needs to get out of a reading slump. This book is just very sweet but still deep in all the ways that it needs to be. 5 stars.