Name: Kate Campbell's review of One True Loves by Taylor Jenkins Reid
Item: One True Loves
Rating: 3.5
Author: Kate Campbell

Taylor Jenkins Reid

From the New York Times bestselling author of The Seven Husbands of Evelyn Hugo Named a Best Book of Summer by Cosmopolitan * InStyle *PopSugar * Buzzfeed * Bustle * Brit+Co * Parade “No one does life and love better.” InStyle “Earth-shaking…you will flip for this epic love story.” Cosmopolitan In her twenties, Emma Blair marries her high school sweetheart, Jesse. They build a life for themselves, far away from the expectations of their parents and the people of their hometown in Massachusetts. They travel the world together, living life to the fullest and seizing every opportunity for adventure. On their first wedding anniversary, Jesse is on a helicopter over the Pacific when it goes missing. Just like that, Jesse is gone forever. Emma quits her job and moves home in an effort to put her life back together. Years later, now in her thirties, Emma runs into an old friend, Sam, and finds herself falling in love again. When Emma and Sam get engaged, it feels like Emma’s second chance at happiness. That is, until Jesse is found. He’s alive, and he’s been trying all these years to come home to her. With a husband and a fiance, Emma has to now figure out who she is and what she wants while trying to protect the ones she loves. But who is her one true love? What does it mean to love truly?

One True Loves

From the New York Times bestselling author of The Seven Husbands of Evelyn Hugo Named a Best Book of Summer by Cosmopolitan * InStyle *PopSugar * Buzzfeed * Bustle * Brit+Co * Parade "No one does life and love better." InStyle "Earth-shaking...you will flip for this epic love story." Cosmopolitan In her twenties, Emma Blair marries her high school sweetheart, Jesse. They build a life for themselves, far away from the expectations of their parents and the people of their hometown in Massachusetts. They travel the world together, living life to the fullest and seizing every opportunity for adventure. On their first wedding anniversary, Jesse is on a helicopter over the Pacific when it goes missing. Just like that, Jesse is gone forever. Emma quits her job and moves home in an effort to put her life back together. Years later, now in her thirties, Emma runs into an old friend, Sam, and finds herself falling in love again. When Emma and Sam get engaged, it feels like Emma's second chance at happiness. That is, until Jesse is found. He's alive, and he's been trying all these years to come home to her. With a husband and a fiance, Emma has to now figure out who she is and what she wants while trying to protect the ones she loves. But who is her one true love? What does it mean to love truly?

ReadwithZanariah 

It's messy to love after heartbreak. It's painful and it forces you to be honest with yourself about who you ar You have to work harder to find the words for your feelings, because they don't fit into any prefabricated boxes.

We are two people who are madly in love with our old selves. And that is not the same as being in love. You can’t capture love in a bottle. You can’t hold on to it with both hands and force it to stay with you. What has happened to us is no one’s fault-neither of us did anything wrong-but when Jesse left, life took us in opposite directions and turned us into different people. We grew apart because we were apart. 

People aren’t stagnant. We evolve in reaction to our pleasures and our pains.

It’s rare that you love the person who loves you, that you love only the person who loves only you. Otherwise, somebody’s heartbroken. 

A love story about a woman unexpectedly forced to choose between the husband she has long thought dead and the fiancé who has finally brought her back to life

A Novel

RacquelElizabeth

"I don't think you're trying to figure out if you love Sam more or Jesse more. I think you're trying  to figure out if you want to be the person you are with Jesse or if you want to be the person you are with Sam"

debbie <3

It feels so good to flirt. No one ever talks about that. But in that moment, I felt like flirting was the very thing that made the world go around. 

Sarah Campbell

I don’t think that true love means your only love. I think true love means loving truly. Loving purely. Loving wholly. 

She’s such a negative Nancy. My romantic personality is baffled. 

Don't ever let anyone tell you the most romantic part of love is the beginning. The most romantic part is when you know it has to end.

We are two people who are madly in love with our old selves. And that is not the same as being in love. 

Do you ever get over loss? Or do you just find a box within yourself, big enough to hold it? Do you just stuff it in there, push it down, and snap the lid on it? Do you just work, every day, to keep the box shut?

When you love someone, it seeps out of everything you do, it bleeds into everything you say, it becomes so ever-present, that eventually it becomes ordinary to hear, no matter how extraordinary it is to feel.

I decided to no longer wonder what would have happened if things had worked out differently. And instead, I would focus on what was in front of me. I would focus on reality instead of asking myself questions about fictions.

Flirting is probably just as much about falling in love with yourself as it is with someone else. 

I will carry you in my heart always, but I cannot carry your loss on my back anymore. If I do, I'll never find any new joy for myself. I will crumble under the weight of your memory. I have to look forward, into a future where you cannot be. Instead of back, to a past filled with what we had. I have to let you go and I have to ask you to let me go. 

Good things don't wait until you're ready. Sometimes they come right before, when you're almost there.

You know that you will never truly be free of the grief. You know that it is something you just learn to live with, something you manage. 

You start to understand that grief is chronic. That it’s more about remission and relapse than it is about a cure. What that means to you is that you can’t simply wait for it to be over. You have to move through it, like swimming in an undertow. 

I had predicted my life on the idea that I wanted to see everywhere extraordinary, but I’d come to realize that extraordinary is everywhere. 

You can't capture love in a bottle. You can't hold on to it with both hands and force it to stay with you.

I liked the pain because the pain was you.

I need everybody to understand that this is not "emo". It's real and important because real people really experience this.

Hollow and empty are terrible ways to feel when you're used to being full of joy. But it's not bad when you're used to being full of pain.

Which is nice, because for so long you have felt like you were at the end.

I had predicated my life on the idea that I wanted to see everywhere extraordinary, but I'd come to realise that extraordinary is everywhere.

She read adult books and wrote poetry and had crushes on fictional characters instead of movie stars

When you look back on your own timeline, there's a sharp spike somewhere along the way, some event that changed you, changed your life, more than others.

A moment that creates a "before" and an "after".

honestly, after eveyrthing that’s happened, jesse isn’t emma’s person anymore. i think everyone needs their person at a specific time in their life, and once they change, they find new people, or maybe they go back to their person from another time in their life. emma and jesse were her past, her young adult and teenage life. but emma and sam, are forever, since they were kids they loved each other, and they still do. 

maria garcia 

"Everything is going to be OK," he says to me before I fall asleep. But I'm not sure I believe him anymore. 

Kate Campbell

There is something about TJR books that sucks me in completely. I devour her books. This one was another fabulous read. I loved how this ended too. A certain part of the story was a bit far fetched, but it was the emotions and situational circumstances that were just written so brilliantly, and so it didn’t really distract. I Loved it…………. Now tempted to finally dive into daisy jones and the six. I know, I’m a decade late to the party!

Aims

Abigail Stutz

A moving love story about a woman unexpectedly forced to choose between the husband she has long thought dead and the fiancé who has finally brought her back to life - from the bestselling author of The Seven Husbands of Evelyn Hugo. SOON TO BE A MAJOR MOTION PICTURE In her twenties, Emma marries her high school sweetheart, Jesse. They build a life for themselves, living life to the fullest and seizing every opportunity for adventure. On their first wedding anniversary, Jesse is on a helicopter over the Pacific when it goes missing. Just like that, Jesse is gone forever. Years later, now in her thirties, Emma runs into an old friend, Sam, and finds herself falling in love again. When Emma and Sam get engaged, it feels like Emma's second chance at happiness. That is, until Jesse is found. He's alive, and all these years he's been trying to come home to her. With a husband and a fiancé, Emma has to now figure out who she is and what she wants. Who is her one true love? Emma knows she has to listen to her heart. She's just not sure what it's saying. 'Earth-shaking romance...you will flip for this epic love story.' Cosmopolitan

It is a great concept, but I didn’t feel as drawn in by the writing and character development as I have by other TJR books. Great to see Acton landmarks being called out though, RIP Julie’s Place :( 

Coley T

Perfect if you are looming for a storyline straight out of a 90s romcom, but Jenkins Reid’s sharp emotional insight elevates the boom into something genuinely compelling.

g.m.

Thanks, I’m sobbing. Maybe because I’ve been going through something very similar. But, was this not real, and something you can take with you in life moving forward. 

A good book but I knew from the start she would pick Sam. I did. Tear up a lot throughout 

Katie Roberts

good story about relationships and their complexities. Love Taylor Jenkins Reid always 

Paige Paul

Shannon C

This was my firs TJR read and i’m definitely gonna check out the rest of her books. This book was heartbreaking and for awhile i wasn’t sure who the FMC was going to end up with. Wasn’t looking forward to being happy for one and sad for the other. near the end it was very clear and i was rooting for their happiness. in the end it was a happy ending for everyone and that’s all that matters

This one was so good. I really enjoyed reading this book and while I feel like I’ve heard the plot of this book before in a movie or a different book. I was curious to see what would happen by the end of the book but also predicted what was going to happen too. So while I figured what would happen I still enjoyed the book and the rollercoaster story that I definitely recommend for everyone to read. 

Priscilla Stanfield

i was kinda disappointed reading this, i felt like i shouldve felt more connected to emma but the writing left me feeling disconnected and like i was an outsider looking in. it was hard to feel what was happening and even if the storyline is predictable it couldve been executed better. 

what i DID like was the point of how you can change, multiple versions of you can exist in a lifetime and that is not contradictory at all. two things can be true at once!

Janet Akisanmi

i was kinda disappointed reading this, i felt like i shouldve felt more connected to emma but the writing left me feeling disconnected and like i was an outsider looking in. it was hard to feel what was happening and even if the storyline is predictable it couldve been executed better. 

what i DID like was the point of how you can change, multiple versions of you can exist in a lifetime and that is not contradictory at all. two things can be true at once!

Bria

This went way easier for Emma than I thought it would

Amazing!! Lives up to the hype for sure. 

Zoey Novak

arwen

insert blonde girl crying clutching her throat gif

im team jesse i hate sam feel like hes ugly

hanni

Gabby Trupp

this book breaks you in all the best ways. taylor jenkins reid, you are simply amazing.

Sarah

c’est quand que tjr arrête de me faire chialer toutes les larmes de mon corps ???

chateau

this book is a whole package. 11 out of 10. but one thing if i really could change is, to get a lot more moment with sam, it feels so unfair to me how the majority plot was about jesse than it is about sam. i miss him more now than i ever be. i need some parts of him for me to take home to, to love him more, to praise him, to remembering how selfless he'd be. but yes, other than that, it's magnificent. this book teaches me a lot. like, a lot.

Doris Ivandic 

this book broke my heart. i adore you taylor jenkins reid <3

Ryan 

if this book ended with a polyamorous relationship, i wouldn't be mad

“True love doesn’t always last,” I say. “It doesn’t always have to be for a lifetime.” “Right. And that doesn’t mean it’s not true love,”

Gahhh this was an emotional rollercoaster! I am glad I picked this book again after putting it on hold for almost a year. Very beautiful story that teach me some people are not destined to be with us for all eternity, and even relationships are over it doesn't have to mean we didn't love or care about them anymore; we do, but in different way, because people change, we change. And that's okay.

Syahla Aurel

** spoiler alert **
           Just because something isn’t meant to last a lifetime doesn’t mean it wasn’t meant to be. We were meant to have been.

I think it's predictable who Emma will end up with from the first chapter, which doesn't matter as the conflict was still interesting to read. But Emma's actions confused me like if she's already decided to be with that guy then why is she sleeping with another guy? 🤷‍♀️

Victoria 

A tug and a pull on the heart strings. The audiobook got me good and I like the narrator (she does a lot of Taylor Jenkins Reid’s books)

hilda ☆

“you can’t capture love in a bottle. you can’t hold on to it with both hands and force it to stay with you.” yeah…. tjr you have done it again! 3.75 ⭐️

l ˚｡⋆୨୧˚

what would you do if your husband came back after you thought he was dead? what would you do if he called you while you were at dinner with your new fiancé?


i would have no idea how to react. i got upset with emma for how she went about it, but i can’t even really blame her. she was put in a rough spot but she made it work. i absolutely loved both love interests & i didn’t know who i was rooting for! even now that i know who she ends up with, i’m still not sure if i’m happy about it. the book was a wild journey but i’m so glad i finally got a chance to read it. i ended it with tears streaming down my face 🥲 taylor jenkins reid has done it again

Kate Campbell &
One True Loves by Taylor Jenkins Reid

Reviews

Highlights

Join the club

Kate Campbell &One True Loves by Taylor Jenkins Reid

Reviews

Highlights

Join the club

Kate Campbell &
One True Loves by Taylor Jenkins Reid