The One You Really Want by Jill Mansell - Book Review

 

First novel of 2023 is done!

Jill Mansell was one of the first romance authors I read ten years ago when I was just a mere thirteen-year-old. When I saw this book was free to download on the book app that comes with an iPhone, I decided to download it. The book came out in 2008 and since then Mansell has had many other novels out.

This book is about two best friends Nancy and Carmen. Nancy has just found out her husband has been cheating, and she leaves to live in London where her best friend lives. It’s not just them two living there, Nancy’s mum comes as well, and Carmen’s brother-in-law has decided to move in.

Nancy begins falling for her best friend’s neighbour,  Callum. Whereas Carmen, after being windowed for three years falls for a man named Joe.

Ultimately, I did like this novel, but the closer I reached the ending the more I was distancing myself. But there are areas which I enjoyed about this novel, and that is showing good women's friendships. I’ve read quite a few novels when the women were always catty with each other which reinforces that women always see each other as competition and can never like one another. Of course, most of these books which are like this are written by men, but there are a few that are written by women.

However, looking back through this novel, I’ve come to realise that there was a lot that I was not fond of. One of the main elements I like about Mansell is that her novels do have side stories revolving around the side characters, such as Callum’s daughter, Mel, or Nancy’s boss, Zac. Nevertheless, I feel this time the subplots did not really work with the novel and I couldn’t really see how they all linked together and how the subplot didn’t add anything to the main plot.

Not only that, but we do not really see Nancy grieving over her husband, it comes across that they've been married for years and he was the love of her life, but yet there wasn't a scene with Nancy saddened that after all these years, he cheated and they were over. Sure, everyone moves on differently, but nowhere in the book was there one scene to showcase her emotion, even if it was months after the occurrence. I also understand that in a novel, you want to make sure everything moves on with a flow and a good pace to make sure readers do not put the book down, but doing this, made it rather unrealistic.

On top of that, Carmen ends up having three different romances, and the one she ends up with is not who she wanted although expected it would be him. Without trying to spoil it, it would have been nice to see a friendship between and man and woman without any romance, as it is rare to see. To be honest, it seemed rather forced and quite rushed.

Continuing feeling that some of the novel was rushed, especially the ending. I remember sitting there after finishing thinking, is that all, is this the ending? These characters, Nancy and Carmen, ended up with the men they were destined for but there was nothing throughout the novel which gave a slight hint of excitement or tension that something would happen.

Overall, I gave this novel a 3/5.