Un dia (original 2009; edition 2010)

Live a life making do with others, live a life making do with others. ( )

Live a life making do with others, live a life making do with others. ( )

Too long and boring! ( )

I hated everyone in this book. I... actually can't think of anything more to say than that. There is no plot. There is absolutely nothing of value here. Given the nature of the beast, it could have been saved by characterisation but... nope. Everyone is horrible in it, even, eventually, Emma, who was the most bearable of the lot.

Save yourself the trouble of reading it, really. It is, in no way, worth it. ( )

Wonderful read! You can read my review of One Day over at my blog (contains some spoilers): http://www.rulethewaves.net/blog/?p=2044 ( )

For a serious anglophile like myself, "One Day" was the perfect escapist read for me. I decided to read it after finishing "Plain Kate" which was a wonderful book but very intense and painful. "One Day" is a light, entertaining movie-ready tale that tells the story of Dexter and Emma, who meet on their last day of university and embark on a life long friendship full of twists and turns. Reading this book was a lot like watching "Love Actually." It is so very British and funny and comforting and familiar, but definitely not without its problems. The end, in particular, was very frustrating. Still worth the read, though, particularly if you're looking for something to read whilst on vacation or traveling, or just stuck in the middle of a grey, never ending winter. And if you just love all things British, like I do, you must pick this up. ( )

This was a bit of a trip down nostalgia way. tells of 2 people who meet the evening of graduation, and views their lives through a snapshot of St Swithun's day. The first is the morning after the night before, and the following 20 years (with a few odd exceptions) follows. OK, it is highly unlikely that all of the great events of you life will happen quite so reliably on the same day as seems to occur within this book, but I can forgive it that. It's an interesting way of viewing the story, as you don't always know what's happened in the intervening 12 months.
Em and Dex are a few years older than me, but not so much that I can't recognise their growing pains and the environment they grow in. The insecurity of the early/mid 20s being a particular sharp pain. I'm not sure i can really relate to either of them, with them both being a certain stereotype: Em the northern, political, lefty protestor, Dex the smug, well off son of a the landed class. I wasn't entirely sure what held them together. i've certainly long since lost touch with friends even half as difficult as either of these two. there is clearly an attraction between them, and part of the story has to the the "will they, won;t they" element. Once that's resolved, some of the tension dissipates. The ending is particularly tough going - Dexter's father on grief had me on the verge of a good blub. I'm also not entirely sure it fitted with the rest of the book. The entire tone changed dramatically and it was like I'd picked up another book by mistake.
it's an interesting surmise, a bit like piecing together a life by only reading Christmas letters, but it didn't really feel like a real life. A nice easy listen that, at times, had me giggling away. ( )

2.5

I really, really wanted to love this book and unfortantly I found it daunting and unsatisfying. The concept was unique and didn't sound like the typical love story. Dex and Em have only met once, but they can't shake each other from their thoughts. The story flips back and forth between Dex and Em's perspectives of the same day they met, but over the course of the next few years. I think the biggest downfall for me was I didn't like either of the characters. I thought Dex was an egomanical, chauvanistic pig, and Em was dense and boring. I couldn't connect with either character, which made it hard for me to care where either of them ended up or with who. The storyline seemed to jump all over the place and couldn't keep my attention.

I know a lot of people loved this book, and I really hope maybe the movie will entertain me more then the book did, but I doubt I will run out and pick up the movie anytime soon. I'm not saying this book is horrible and not to read it, but It just wasn't for me. :/ ( )

So Finished it this morning. First thing i must say I do not understand why so many people have categorized this book under chick lit. So when a book has romance in it it is chick lit? Well this is definitely not chick lit to me and I have read a lot of that genre. On bookobsessed we would use this for swaps called Non Genre. I'll put it under literature. It was a hard start. At first I thought I had made a big mistake buying this book but after a while I got into it and I enjoyed reading. I did not know anything about this book before i read and I am glad I didn't. What happened was not what I expected. I thought this was a thought provoking novel. It made me remember days that if I would not have acted as I did my life would have changed completely. ( )

Some wit, some sap and cheese and predictability, some bang-on descriptions of life -- really its redeeming quality. Sometimes just too close to home that it depressed me...but also holds some hope. As far as chicklit goes, this is pretty good. ( )

** spoiler alert ** Not every book will have a happy ending and I don't expect that, but a hopeful ending is always nice. One Day has that...it's certainly not happy. The ending is quite tragic, but despite that, it's a wonderful book.

The story follows Dexter and Emma through out their friendship, but we only get to see them on one day each year - July 15th. We discover what happens in between on occasion, but I was never left disappointed with the end of a day.

Definitely a good read (and I'm certain it will make an excellent film). I knew the casting going in, but I think even without that knowledge I would have imagined Anne Hathaway as Emma. However, the Dexter in my head was always Jake Gyllenhaal. I'm certain that's because of that naked movie they were in together (I haven't seen it...something about love in the title.) The person actually playing Dexter is Jim Sturgess, but I've never really seen him in anything and I didn't seek out a photo (until this very moment). I can see him as Dexter now, but he's no Jake Gyllenhaal... ( )

loved, loved, loved this book! it is happy, heartbreaking and wonderfully told; definitely one that one should read before seeing the movie ( )

I am a dedicated 'readit1st' person. So I had to read this before seeing the movie.

I am really glad I read it, have yet to see the movie but there is so much to this story that I cant imagine the movie doing it justice! The story takes place on one day of the year during a span of time between the late 1980's and 2005ish and the lives of two people on that day. Of course their lives intertwine in different ways from friends to lovers and one night stands. The story is ultimately a romance but it has a larger focus on the lives of Emma and Dexter than just time spent between the sheets. The book drags a bit in the middle as you expect things to go a certain way and you simply wait for that to happen...and wait some more... but then the story takes an entirely different turn and suddenly you are caught up in the characters again.

Now for the
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This book made me so angry! It had me completely enamored with this nerdy cute Emma and the spoiled party boy Dex who is less than perfect but endearing. The story follows their friendship after a failed/almost one night stand and the friendship is maintained through the years. The story has you begging them to get together and they dont, instead right when you think they are getting together Dex reveals his impending nuptials and the Baby! Thats when your hopes for Emma and Dexter go down in flames. Keep reading though it gets better and then worse and then better... ( )

The first time I read the first few pages, I put it back on the shelf, but I picked it up again with a friend's encouragement (thanks Jess) and ended up liking it a lot (though I disagree that it's Hornby-esque, except in the sense that it's British and fiction. Though why, if it's British, do they STILL say *miles* per hour and not kilometers?). It's an interesting method of storytelling - visit the characters once a year for twenty years - though the story was a bit sad and depressing, overall, with glimmers of good times here and there.

Dexter didn't like to think of himself as vain, but there were definitely times when he wished there was someone on hand to take his photograph. (24)

Sometimes it seems she can chart her life by what she worries about at three a.m. (359-360)

( )

This book really puts you back in the 90s. It's an easy read and you really do get sucked into the two central character's lives. At times, you find it difficult to have sympathy for the male lead, and yet one of the points of the novel is his dependence on the female lead – she, in effect, makes him whole. The twist at the end, the way in which St Swithun's Day is used as a window into the character's lives, and the poignant flashbacks at the end of the novel are very effective devices for what is a witty and oddly romantic novel. ( )

I wish I could give this 3 and a half. ( )

To me, this book really captures the mood of the world being your oyster in the late 80s, and the highs and lows of the way the 90s panned out. Not sure if it because I was in Edinburgh at roughly the same time/age as the characters, but throughout this book I had the uncanny feeling I was reading about the ups and downs of my own social circle.

SPOILER

The beautifully rendered early experiences of Em and Dex, Dex and Em, left me unprepared when the ground was pulled out from under them each in turn, but then that's life. If I had realised up front how harrowed and bereft I would end up feeling in places, I don't think I would have chosen to read this at the moment, which would have been a shame. ( )

I would love to give this 3.5 stars, but I think because of Dexter it defaulted to 3.

I'm going to start with what I liked about this.
1- I loved the format. I really enjoyed spanning 20 years with Emma and Dexter on the same day.
2- I loved the format in the end. I felt this closed the story in a way that many stories lack.
3- I liked seeing how Emma and Dexter influenced each other's lives throughout their friendship.
4- I liked seeing Dexter grow as a person.
5- I really liked Emma and Dexter. But only when they were together and beyond.

Alright, now what I wasn't a fan of.
1- Dexter annoyed the hell out of me. (Yet I truly felt for him at the end.)
2- I felt the format prevented some things from happening in the story.
3- Emma also annoyed the hell out of me.

It was nice to finally read a book that I wanted to finish and finish quickly. It's been a while since I've had one. ( )

I really, really wanted to like this book. The concept sounded entirely fascinating, and, truly, it is. However, I completely loathed them as characters, Dexter especially. Emma I might have liked sort of, although not staunchly, were it not for her pathetic love for Dexter, which she insists on maintaining through the years.

Dexter, though, is perhaps the most awful, selfish character in all of literature. Remember how I had a list of characters I wanted to punch in the face? Well, this guy, he would be on it. Emma spends years mooning over this total loser. He sleeps with every woman that moves, including Emma occasionally. Not only that, but he sleeps with women he shouldn't, like really shouldn't, as in students during a brief teaching gig. On top of that, he's perpetually drunk, takes any drugs he can get his hands on, and rubs other people's noses in his success, such as it is.

Somehow, as a reader, I think I'm supposed to feel like I can't wait for Dex and Em to get themselves sorted and become a couple, like Emma has always dreamed. Yeah, that's not where I am at all. I don't Em nearly enough to want her to spend her life waiting for this waste of space to finish sowing his wild oats all over the world. There is nothing romantic about a girl (or guy if the situations were reversed) wasting her life pining over someone that's not showed a scrap of interest. She should be enjoying herself along the way, too. If they end up together, cool, but only on terms where they both lived their lives as they wanted to. This is so unbalanced; she's just waiting for him to choose her and he's keeping her as a backup, for when he's too old to keep doing what he's doing now. Just UGH.

The writing, though, is really good. The story's well-told, so that, as much as I want to throw it across the room (which is a lot), it also wasn't that hard to get through most of the time. I definitely think that this may be one of the most depressing books I have ever read. ( )

I didn't really know what I expected from this book. But I didn't expect THAT. It was a good read, though it took me a while to get into it.

The narrative style was interesting... only getting to see one day of each year made for a very unique tableau of Dexter and Emma's lives.

I didn't particularly like the characters. Dexter seemed to take advantage of Emma a lot, and he moved on so quickly after her death. Emma just didn't seem very likeable. She shoved her ideals down other peoples' throats and she had no confidence in herself. ( )

I enjoyed this one quite a lot. I really like the concept- each chapter visits the same two people- Emma and Dexter, on the same day of the year, each year from the night they first meet. Sometimes they're best friends, sometimes they've fallen out and I found it really interesting to navigate through their lives. Both the characters were very likable and I enjoyed reading about them. I thought the book would be quite predictable but it certainly wasn't- the end really took me by surprise and while sad, seemed very fitting somehow. I liked that it wasn't the fairytale ending I was expecting because it made it really stand out from other love stories. The writing was engaging and overall, it was a very good book. ( )

I enjoyed reading this book, but upon finishing it, I must say that it was overall a disappointment.

The whole thing seems rather pointless to me.

I found Emma's journey a lot more interesting than lame Dexter's only to have it snuffed out in such a dissatisfying and unexpected way.

The whole book seemed to be about missed opportunities and chances and yet, when things finally get on the right track, it all ends in a tragic and unexpected way.

Why? What was the point of it at all? Couldn't we have a revelation of some sort? I mean honestly, I read through 400 pages for this?

I read this book after a string of romance novels so maybe I'm biased, but still. I really see no point.

I did like some things about the book: I liked Emma and her struggle to find herself in her life and career, I liked the writing style which was engaging and interesting, I liked the concept of a snapshot of July 15 from year to year, although it was a bit irritating because sometimes I wanted to know what happened the next day or the next week, but I guess that was the point.

I agree with the reviews- the book is glorified chick-lit, withouth a HEA, which I guess is supposed to elevate it to the rank of "literature." I don't buy it..... ( )

I think the idea behind this story is awesome: a look at where two people are each year on the same date: July 15. Dex and Em may have been able to have a romance once, but missed opportunities happen.

So I was really enjoying this book until the climax of the action, which I HATED. The ending was alright, if you accept what happens, but really, I don't understand what the point of that plot twist was. ( )

It did not entice me enough to keep reading.

I'd seen the movie before reading this book so I knew what was going to happen, but geez, it's still a punch in the gut. Here's a story that follows two people on this one day each year for twenty years, so of course you can't help but get invested in the characters.

Mind you, neither Emma or Dexter are very likeable characters, at least not to me. For twenty years it's like they never grow up, still the same whiny, self absorbed and pretentious people year after year. So many times while I was reading, it was like wow, shut the hell up and get over yourselves!!! But I guess a part of me also liked that they are flawed people, and that was what made them feel so real.

As time passes, they deal with the kind of common problems that I suppose all people have to overcome as they go through life. In a way, this book is less a romance and more about a story of growing up for adults. It's interesting to see Dex and Em go through the different life stages and events from their early twenties to early forties, and that will make it easy for many people to relate. I'm sure a lot of the things they experience will resonate with other readers as they did with me.

Just a heads up though -- this is NOT a happy happy joy joy read. Do not pick this up if you're looking for a feel-good book, as this is definitely not the book you're looking for. In many ways One Day reminds me of stuff by Nicolas Sparks, being a tale of a great love and all, but with a heart-wrenching, depressing and tearjerking spin to it. ( )