I wonder why nobody had thought of the idea before. On 15th July 1988, Emma and Dexter meet on the night of their graduation from Edinburgh University. The book then describes what happens to them on the same day for the next twenty years. An extremely smart device and some great writing makes for a captivating novel. I had read "One Day" by David Nichols three months or so before the Book Club meeting, so it was interesting looking back on the story. The structure seemed very interesting, there was one year that was only about Emma, and another when it was just Dexter. And the last few years really gathers momentum as the pace builds up. Because the book is all about two characters, we really get to know them, their flaws especially. Once Emma says to Dexter "I love you so much, I probably always will. I just don't like you anymore." Everyone there on Tuesday enjoyed reading this book, a very contemporary novel.
I cannot say the same for "Gone for Good" by Harlan Coben. Apparently he is a very popular American writer of crime fiction, and his latest novel "Caught" has posters all over the place. I think it is just the majority of us don't go for this type of thriller. That is not to say it wasn't interesting to read something of this genre. For me, there were just too many twists to be convincing. And there was no way you could have worked out what was going to happen. Because the plot was far too implausible, I found it very manipulative with twists for the sake of twists. There were too many characters, and as Hilary pointed out, you could not get into or sympathise with any of them. There were some short clips in the first part of the book where an unknown woman is in trouble. This time we could work out for ourselves who she was and this was far better. Just a shame the rest was far too unpredictable.
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