When I had listened to a couple of short audio books recently I was sort of back in the groove, and when scrolling I noticed this. I've enjoyed previous books by Taylor Jenkins Reid so thought I would probably like this one. It is eight hours long and it probably took me six weeks to listen to it while driving places, but I managed to keep the thread of the narrative pretty well. That's partly because it's quite a simple story, I think. But I did really like the narrator, too. She was interesting and kept me going with listening. I enjoyed doing so, so I might start another audio book soon!
The main character of the book is Emma. She is from small town New England and she grew up with her parents and her sister. She and her sister didn't really get along as teenagers. Their parents owned a book shop - Blair Books - and Emma and Marie were expected to work there. Marie wanted to grow up and run the store; Emma wanted to get as far away as possible. Sam Kemper worked in the shop too and one time, he asks Emma out. But she says no and he leaves for college and that's the end of that.
Emma then meets Jesse at a party. He is captain of the swim team and a total jock. They're quite opposites but they get together. They go to university in California and make a life out there. Jesse becomes a camera man and Emma is a travel writer. They get married at Jesse's family cabin in Maine and have a happy first year of marriage. But then, on their first wedding anniversary, the helicopter that Jesse is travelling to a job in goes down. Jesse is presumed dead.
But right from the beginning of the book, the reader (listener...) knows that Emma is engaged again - to Sam - but that Jesse is alive. It is three years after his 'death' and he is back - but what does this mean for Emma? The narrative flips backwards and forwards in time, showing how Emma went mad with grief when Jesse disappeared and how she managed to put herself back together and fall in love with Sam and get engaged to him.
At all points it's obvious that she loves both men. She deeply loves them, but for different reasons. And she's different people when she's with each of them, which I think is one of the main points of the book - how people who love you bring out the best in you, but different sides. I really liked how the whole thing was portrayed. I felt nothing but sympathy for Emma, and for Sam, and mostly for Jesse. There's a lot of it where he's just quite dense, but it's hard to not feel sorry for him.
I've just seen there's a film of that so I will definitely put that on my list of things to watch. I'm giving this four out of five.
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