I read this book about five years ago when I was about 17 years old, and I loved it at the time, but I felt now was a good time to re-read it when I’m at the age of the main characters when the novel starts and I’ve lived through some similar life experience.
One Day by David Nicholls begins in 1988 the morning after university graduation for Emma Morley and Dexter Mayhew, and the new friends have just spent the night together, not knowing where their lives will lead them. The two spend one day together, July 15, also not knowing if it will last. The rest of the novel follows Emma and Dexter’s lives on the same day until the early 2000s.
Sometimes the two are together, sometimes they’re not. You gain insight into their lives over the years. Dex starts out as the well-liked college boy, and Emma is the bookish, leftist post-graduate. But over the years, they slowly grow into themselves.
Most of the novel is a will they, won’t they vibe. You know the two are meant to be together, but they’re still growing and learning and becoming adults.
I love the concept for this book of taking a look at their lives on one day each year over a 15-year period. I’ve always liked looking back and seeing how my life has changed in one year, two year, five years. Looking back and thinking how I’d changed since I’d first read One Day was crazy.
When I read this book at 17, I loved it. I couldn’t put it down. But I don’t think it resonated with me.
It does now.
Being 22 — the same age as Emma, I think Dex is a year older? — I was able to understand some of their struggles, such as not knowing where you’re going to go after graduation, what to do with your life and maybe what you want for your life. I went through that two years ago when I graduated from college. I’m still going through that.
It made both Emma and Dex’s struggles real. Although there were parts I couldn’t relate to, I think I might give this book another read maybe 10 years down the road and see where I’m at and how I’ve fared in comparison to the two lead characters.
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