better together

I spent a good portion of this month hanging out at the hospital.  To try and pass the day, I walked around the maze-like hallways, scouting out any halfway decent magazines abandoned on the tables.  This means I have read pretty much any issue Real Simple/Glamour/Martha Stewart Living/In Style/New Yorker published in the last four months.  (The only one left untouched was The Economist).  Magazines are great, but they only manage to kill an hour or so.  After I flew through a borrowed copy of an awesomely-bad beach read ("The Castaways"), I stumbled across the library on the first floor and left with a stack precariously balanced in my arms.

I curled up in the family waiting room with a paperback copy of "One Day".  I know a lot of people hated this book.  And it's really not even my type of book.  I know you're not supposed to judge a book by it's cover, but I mean, seriously?


Much to my surprise, I sort of loved it.

I mean, let's back up.  Really, it's not that great, certainly no literary masterpiece or all-time classic.  But it's one of those books that stays with you.  I finished it a couple of weeks ago, and I'm still thinking about it.

The main "gimmick" of the book is the structure.  It spans over twenty years, checking in on the same day with "Dex and Em"/"Em and Dex".  They meet the day after graduation and we follow them through their roller-coaster careers and relationships.

[Spoilers!]
You know from the start they are meant to be together.  This isn't really a surprise; after all, it is a love story.   Neither character is particularly likeable (Dexter is a douche and Emma is whiny), but they are seemingly better when they are together.

I like how the book examines relationships.  It's messy, complex.  They are flawed people and you feel like their lives will never align.  But somehow, it does.  Regardless of the poor life decisions they make which keep them apart, somehow, somehow, they end up together.

But, even in the end, it isn't really happily ever after.  It's more complicated than that.
And maybe that's why I liked it.

"it's not always easy/
and sometimes life can be deceiving/
i'll tell you one thing/
it's always better when we're together" -jack johnson
Better Together by Johnson, Jack on Grooveshark

Saturday, December 24, 2011 | Filed Under , | 1 Comments

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1 Response to "better together"

Amanda said... January 5, 2012 at 4:14 PM

i did sort of love it myself as well! i know we talked a bit about it, but reading this did bring me back to the book. Dex...ass. Em....whiny but kinda cute in a way. I felt bad for her "settled for man" whose name i cannot remember and I'm too lazy to walk over to the bookshelf and look up. The end...kinda had that feeling like something along that line would happen, but still sad that it did. movie wise....i like anne hathaway...and i stand by it that she did a great job as emma. for those who didn't read the book, the movie is a waste, but it held up to the book rather well i thought. but all in all....great book!

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