This may seem a peculiar choice of book to write about because it’s already a pretty renowned bestseller. Nonetheless, this book is one that has stayed with me for over two years since the first time I read it. I am guilty of and will happily confess to being someone who disregards a book just from its first impression. I defined One Day to be a cheesy depth-less romance novel in part due to the cover edition I had featuring Anne Hathaway and Jim Sturgess dramatically embracing each other. Don’t get me wrong, I do love these types of books but going into One Day with that mindset does not give justice to Nicholls’ ability to carve out mundane human experiences in an effortless way that you can’t help but connect to it. I caught myself thinking about this book again recently and particularly the character’s journeys to finding their feet in their twenties, and I knew I had to pick it up and reread it. I can’t usually bring myself to re-read a book even if I did really love it, it almost seems a little redundant to me, but with this book, it was a comforting return to the characters that I can seamlessly relate to. Here is why it is my book of the moment.
I empathized with Emma’s character very early on. She’s a headstrong, stubborn and ambitious 22-year-old that sees her future as being bright and powerful just due to her sheer willingness to make a change. She shortly finds that this is not the reality thrusted upon her and ends up working in a Mexican chain restaurant until she’s nearly 26. Nicholls could have easily given Emma a successful head start in life, she’s described as a double first Edinburgh University student after all. Yet, to choose ultimately a more realistic view on graduate life made me connect with her even more. The complete loss of drive and the self-hatred is typical of many graduates, like me, in similar situations. I started reading this when I was straight out of university with no clue what was next, and I have to say that one of Dexter’s letters in Chapter Three to Emma was a little too close to home. We then have Dexter who is experiencing graduate life entirely different, where Emma lacks self-belief and is a little pessimistic, Dexter is confident and impulsive. He lands a job as a TV presenter which only goes to inflate his ego and paint him out as one of those ‘gets everything handed to him’ types. The whole dynamic between these two is textbook chalk and cheese I guess, but Nicholls showcases Dexter’s cockiness in a way that we know is not reflective of his full personality and similarly with Emma’s rigidness.
The idea of checking in on these characters just one day a year is an ingenious way to both move the story forward and avoid long periods of unnecessary filler. I never felt that I was playing catch up every chapter. The story moved seamlessly and documented their lives as if you were a part of it. This novel also plays into that fantasy of having a long time connection with someone and just to have someone so easily stay in your life. Though it isn’t easy for the characters and it feels fitting that they eventually ended up together, the thought of writing letters, leaving drunken voicemails, and just turning up out of the blue is romantic. There are parts of the novel that feel painful, and for me, the worst part isn’t the death at the end. It is more the years where Emma was falling out of love with her career and slipping into seedy affairs with older men, and the years where Dexter wasn’t sure who he could trust and hopelessly searching for intimacy in the wrong places. These moments are the ones that make the characters human and you can’t help but hope they get what they need by the end.
Unfortunately, the ending isn’t so happy, and the shock of Emma’s sudden death is nothing but surprising, and I can’t say I felt the necessity for it when I first read it. It felt almost like a cliche to highlight the frustration of having the ‘will they won’t they’ answered for it to just melt away again. Dexter is left alone and Emma, though she ended up achieving her career, was left frozen in that time. I didn’t like this decision for a while, but on the second reading I thought about the significance of it for the story. Hitting Dexter with a double whammy of losing his mother and then Emma, both being the more stable and consistent female influences in his life, is telling of how this book was more focussed around testing Dexter’s resilience.
After her death, Nicholls chooses to recalls that first day which starts it all off, revealing more about the alleged one night stand between these two that kick-started a friendship turned relationship of twenty years. The effectiveness of returning to that first day to conclude the novel is that it encouraged me to revise all their other interactions. When you start the book in 1988, you are aware that Emma and Dexter spent a night together, but that was about it, it’s unclear as to how they kept in touch after that interaction and whether it became anything. In the concluding chapter, you experience the novel with a question that was never really answered until after Emma’s death causing the story to go full circle.
For me, this novel feels like a bible for your twenties and how chaotic and unpredictable they can be. Nicholls uses Emma and Dexter to represent two opposite sides of an existential spectrum and delves honestly into the general heartbreak that comes from a lot of your experiences. I truly get comfort from this novel and that’s a feeling which is rare but special to get whenever you can.
saharamelts 