Review: One Plus One by Jojo Moyes

I was pretty excited to get picked to read “One Plus One” as part of the First To Read program (http://www.firsttoread.com/). I’ve heard good things about the author. I wasn’t too sure on how the novel would go in reading the blurb. Sad? Happy? I was extremely pleased with this novel. Gut wrenchingly sweet and wretchedly sad blow up in the same chapter or even page. I absolutely loved Jess’s desperate love for her children (blood and adopted) and her extreme ability to hang on to hope and wit in the worst of circumstances. Ed, I thought, was a complete loss at the beginning, but he quickly redeems himself. Her kids were an absolute hoot. Two very unlikely people meet and end up entwined in the sweetest, off kilter romance story I’ve read in a while. The characters are very real and the situation possible in any town.

Ed ends up losing just about everything about his former life, but gains an unexpected love and lease on a true life he’s finally living. Jess does the unthinkable in an act of desperation and learns how to repair their lives in the process. The insanity of their initial meeting, Ed’s rescue of Jess and her kids, and their awkward adventure (including a flatulent dog turned hero) will keep readers enraptured until the honest end.

(From Amazon.com) Jojo Moyes is a novelist and a journalist. She worked at the Independent for ten years before leaving to write full time. Her previous novels have all been critically acclaimed and include The Girl You Left Behind, Me Before You, The Last Letter from Your Lover, Ship of Brides and Foreign Fruit. She lives in Essex with her husband and their three children.