Name: Nairne Denholm 's review of The Man Who Didn't Call by Rosie Walsh
Item: The Man Who Didn't Call
Rating: 5
Author: Nairne Denholm

Rosie Walsh

*Over a million copies sold worldwide* ______________ 'I absolutely loved this book and didn’t want it to end' Liane Moriarty, author of Big Little Lies and Nine Perfect Strangers. The Man Who Didn't Call by Rosie Walsh is the perfect novel for anyone who's ever waited for a phone call that didn't come. Imagine you meet a man, spend seven glorious days together, and fall in love. And it’s mutual: you’ve never been so certain of anything. So when he leaves for a long-booked holiday and promises to call from the airport, you have no cause to doubt him. But he doesn’t call. Your friends tell you to forget him, but you know they're wrong: something must have happened; there must be a reason for his silence. What do you do when you finally discover you're right? That there is a reason – and that reason is the one thing you didn't share with each other? The truth. For fans of Jojo Moyes and Liane Moriarty, this is the love story of the year . . .

The OMG Love Story of the Year – with a Fantastic Twist

The Man Who Didn't Call

The Man Who Didn't Call by Rosie Walsh is the perfect novel for anyone who's ever waited for a phone call that didn't come. Imagine you meet a man, spend seven glorious days together, and fall in love. And it's mutual: you've never been so certain of anything. So when he leaves for a long-booked holiday and promises to call from the airport, you have no cause to doubt him. But he doesn't call. Your friends tell you to forget him, but you know they're wrong: something must have happened; there mustbe a reason for his silence. What do you do when you finally discover you're right? That there is a reason - and that reason is the one thing you didn't share with each other? The truth.

Nairne Denholm 

UNBELIEVABLE! Really addictive and the twist halfway through kept you captivated. A love story with a twist.

Demi

To put it simply, this book just didn’t work for me. 

First of all, I did think the concept of this book was really intriguing, and I loved the idea of meshing together romance with mystery. However, this book in my opinion really didn’t execute that concept. It kind of left this story being extremely bland because it was trying to focus on to many elements at once, so for me there ended up just being no convincing love story nor a well executed mystery either. 

I think the main problem I had with this book was the whole insta love gone wrong situation. These two main characters literally fell in love in seven days and then our main female mc becomes obsessive over the fact that this guy ghosted her. For me insta love isn’t a troupe I love by any stretch of the imagination, as it’s just so hard to convincingly pull off, and this is a perfect example of not pulling it off. The only real romance we got in this book was through flashbacks so that in itself it a real setup for not creating a real and convincing relationship but tie that in with the concept of bringing in a mystery? This book for me was just trying to do to much. I found the main female lead to be extremely immature, obsessive, and if I’m being completely honest, just plain annoying.

As for the plot twists, I definitely don’t think they were bad at all! I actually didn’t mind them. I think for me this book just went down hill really quickly that the ending and twists never were able to redeem this book for me.

Overall, this book unfortunately didn’t work for me, which is sad because the concept could have been done so amazingly. I can definitely understand and see how this book appeals to readers and how people would like this book, but for me the enjoyment just wasn’t there.

Amy Buckle

The Man Who Didn’t Call is about, well, a man who didn’t call (shocking, I know!) Sarah is going through a tough time in her life; having just separated from her husband (who happens to also be her business partner) she is picking up the pieces and trying to move in. Then she meets Eddie, and after a seven day whirlwind romance, they are infatuated and certain this is a happily ever after for both of them. Eddie leaves for a holiday and promises Sarah he’ll call from the airport – but then he doesn’t. And he doesn’t’ reply to her messages either, and suddenly Sarah feels like she made it all up. But she can’t have done, she knows what he said was real – so why has he suddenly decided to ignore her? And does Sarah really want to know the truth, or will the truth be much worse?

This book was definitely intruiging – even from the title alone, I really wanted to know why the man didn’t call! The narrative switches between Eddie and Sarah’s seven days together, letters written by and to unknown parties, and the present (after Eddie doesn’t call). I liked that it moved around the timeline, and the author cleverly uses this to slowly trickle in more information to reveal parts of the plot, which was probably what kept me turning the page.

As a protagonist, Sarah’s past was clearly full of pain and in the present, it’s painful to see her family try and dismiss Eddie (whom they think Sarah may as well have invented) and try to get her to forget about him. As a reader though, I could understand why Sarah was so desperately trying to cling to what seemingly felt like the only good thing to happen to her in a while.

The main theme in the book was grief and Walsh explores this in a subtle way as most of the plot is focused on Eddie’s whereabouts. I do think this layered narrative allows the reader to invest themselves in different aspects of the plot, and I suppose that could give it a more wide-reaching appeal. All in all however, this book just didn’t grip me. An incommunicable thing, I just wanted something more from this book which it unfortunately did not deliver. As characters, Sarah and Eddie were fine, and the storytelling was clever and unpredictable, and yet, I didn’t walk away from this book feeling much at all. And I think the fact that it didn’t evoke much emotion in me is telling in this review, as I don’t have much to say about the book in general.

I think the way this book subtly deals with grief will make it a cathartic experience for some readers who can relate, however, overall this book just didn’t impress me. It wasn’t predictable, and yet when the twist was revealed, I felt very underwhelmed! I normally like books which explore people’s relationships, their past, and how their sense of identity can often be pulled from one significant event, so in theory, this ticked all those boxes – I just didn’t connect with the book unfortunately.

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The Man Who Didn't Call by Rosie Walsh

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