Reviews with content warning for Vomit - The One

This book was a four-star read up until around the 300-ish page mark. While it kept its momentum, the story got a bit convoluted and melodramatic. The One is a relatively contemplative and surely fascinating read as well as strong enough to carry the weight of all its characters and their five different storylines (I stray away from saying povs because we get a pov from two ‘matches’ at two points in the book) but its thrilling nature outweighs its literary lure. It lacks satisfying characterization, balanced unrest and rest, and inoffensive narration. While the book is immersive and the stories anchor in a tinge of reality, the characters never fully develop as people but rather stay characters who just serve to further the plot.
Those are my difficulties with the book. I felt it had potential and like the mcs with their ‘matches’, I wanted to like the book more than I actually did. I, personally, love books with a message and while this novel had one, it never delivered said message gracefully. It was an enjoyable ride but not a remarkable one.

Content Warnings

cady_sass's review

Go to review page

adventurous challenging dark emotional mysterious sad tense fast-paced

Plot- or character-driven? A mix
Strong character development? Yes
Loveable characters? It's complicated
Diverse cast of characters? Yes
Flaws of characters a main focus? It's complicated

5.0

What a spectacular, brilliantly creative piece of writing. I couldn’t put it down and fell asleep reading it after keeping myself up way too late on a work night, that good. There are a multitude of storylines for varying characters and relationships, all centering around the universal “truth” that, in this world, there is one perfect match for everyone on earth and it’s genetically determined. Just send in a DNA sample and await your results. Simple, right? Far, far from it. Absolutely riveting, I will be thinking about this one for a long time.

Edited to add: this is sci-fi, and the science written here is obviously not sound. If you’ll be bothered by the scientific inaccuracies of the central element here then skip this, otherwise have fun pretending it’s real :)

Content Warnings

franklola's review against another edition

Go to review page

adventurous dark mysterious tense fast-paced

Plot- or character-driven? A mix
Strong character development? Yes
Loveable characters? It's complicated
Diverse cast of characters? Yes
Flaws of characters a main focus? Yes

3.75

Content Warnings

kkm88's review against another edition

Go to review page

dark mysterious tense fast-paced

Plot- or character-driven? A mix
Strong character development? No
Loveable characters? No
Diverse cast of characters? N/A
Flaws of characters a main focus? Yes

1.5

Content Warnings

decembermagpie's review against another edition

Go to review page

adventurous dark emotional funny hopeful inspiring reflective tense medium-paced

Plot- or character-driven? Character
Strong character development? It's complicated
Loveable characters? It's complicated
Diverse cast of characters? Yes
Flaws of characters a main focus? It's complicated

5.0

Content Warnings

theklutzybibliophile's review against another edition

Go to review page

emotional hopeful mysterious reflective medium-paced

Plot- or character-driven? A mix
Strong character development? Yes
Loveable characters? Yes
Diverse cast of characters? Yes
Flaws of characters a main focus? Yes

4.25

I love how unique each of the characters were. They all went through journeys that were unlike each others. Very good book.

Content Warnings

marchhare89's review against another edition

Go to review page

dark emotional mysterious reflective tense fast-paced

Plot- or character-driven? A mix
Strong character development? Yes
Loveable characters? It's complicated
Diverse cast of characters? Yes
Flaws of characters a main focus? It's complicated

4.5

Content Warnings

house_of_hannah's review against another edition

Go to review page

dark mysterious tense medium-paced

Plot- or character-driven? A mix
Strong character development? It's complicated
Loveable characters? No
Diverse cast of characters? No
Flaws of characters a main focus? Yes

4.0

I am actually quite surprised with how entertaining this read was in the end. The writing is simple and bland, especially for an adult novel, so I was nervous that it might end up being a DNF. However, I did find each scenario to be intriguing, and I wanted to know what happened to the characters.

This book follows five characters/couples, which I do think is too many, as most situations stay pretty surface level. We go through each character a chapter at a time, and then that repeats until the end of the book. The characters stay in the same order throughout the entire story (Mandy, Christopher, Jade, Nick, Ellie), which I do appreciate, because it was very easy to forget who was who. The chapters are really short though, so it was a revolving door of plotlines.

I thought the concept of the story was interesting, and as this is a thriller expect a helping of twists and turns. Most of the characters are just terrible people though, so it was honestly hard to find someone to root for. This is also more of a "tell" instead of "show" book, since the chapters are such bite size pieces, and the book itself isn't that long.

My four star rating is just for the entertainment value I got out of this. I don't believe this is an author I would seek out. However, if you're looking for a quick and easy thriller with some romance for Valentine's Day, then this would be a safe bet.

Content Warnings

More...