The One That Got Away

by Bethany Chase

[Leah]

If you ever ask me the question who my favourite author is, I’ll tell you Sophie Kinsella. But, if you ask me what my favourite book is, I’ll tell you Something Borrowed by Emily Giffin. It’s one of the only novels about cheating that I can stand (and I say this in every review I write that blurs the lines in regards to cheating). It’s a hard balance to get right, so when I heard about The One That Got Away by Bethany Chase, not only did Emily Giffin’s novel Love The One You’re With spring to mind, but I was also DESPERATE to read it, because there aren’t many authors like Emily Giffin. Some have tried, but none even come close to her greatness. Sometimes you just know you’re going to love a book before you’ve finished the first page, and I knew as soon as I started that The One That Got Away was a book you must NOT miss this year.

I’ve had a bit of a drought with regards to good Chick Lit books. They’re few and far between these days, as a lot of them peddle the same stuff time and time again so I’ve been mixing up my genres and, despite the fact I’ve read 17 books so far in 2015, this is my first five-star Chick Lit read (or Women’s Fiction, I literally don’t care what name you use!) and comes at a welcome time when I barely even started my last book before giving up.

The great thing about the novel is it will likely have a lot of people wondering about their ones who got away (or didn’t get away, the lucky ducks) and Sarina is one of the most refreshing people to ever tell a story. I loved her. I loved her honesty, I loved that she was all girl-power and wanting to make her own way in the world, and I loved that she didn’t actually cheat on Noah. That’s ALWAYS my bug bear in these novels, where relationships start from cheating and then you’re always on edge for ever more, because you just can’t base a relationship on cheating (and only Something Borrowed has changed my mind on that, no other book has managed it). I loved that for a long time Sarina was loyal to Noah – at the end of the day, it would have been so easy to just forget Noah and jump in to bed with Eamon. A guy who digs you and is in your own state vs a guy who digs you all the way from Argentina? No contest, but Sarina was different.

Sarina and Eamon are on a knife-edge the whole novel. We know how Sarina feels, but it takes ages before we see how Eamon feels, and I liked their banter. It wasn’t always clean (in regards to Noah, I mean) but it toed the line enough that I was okay with it. I loved Eamon. I loved that he was so willing to let Sarina, a fantastic architect (Ted Mosby would have loved her!) help with his house re-build on his return to Austin. It was so cool to see how much Eamon appreciated and “got” Sarina’s plans for his house. Heck, it was just so cool to see Sarina being an architect. That’s not what you see every day, but like Eamon, I totally got her vision. I loved how she appreciated buildings and put so much effort in to her work and it was a really fun to get a glimpse in to Sarina’s work life. What made Sarina’s dream of being an architect even more amazing was John, her step-dad. I love how he instilled so much in to her, and inspired her to become an architect and how John would get SO excited to see Sarina’s work and the plans for Eamon’s house etc.

The One That Got Away was pretty much a pitch-perfect novel, I loved the triangle-that-wasn’t-really-a-triangle, I loved Sarina’s relationships with everyone in her life most especially John, who was such a special character. Sarina had such great friends, too! Danny and Nicole were amazing friends. Probably my only fly in the ointment was View Spoiler » I suspect though that that spoiler is just me being prim and proper. This novel made me laugh, it made me cry, and gave me that wonderful feeling in my stomach when two characters just finally do what you’ve been wanting them to do for ages. Sigh, I miss that feeling, it’s a rarity these days. The One That Got Away is a must read, I swear. And I am SO excited that the next book is Colin’s story. The Roy family are the Maddoxes of the Chick Lit world… and I can’t wait for the next installment!