Review: One Plus One

One Plus One
by Jojo Moyes
Contemporary fiction
Amazon  /  Goodreads

Plot Summary:

One single mom. One chaotic family. One quirky stranger. One irresistible love story from the New York Times bestselling author of Me Before You.

Suppose your life sucks. A lot. Your husband has done a vanishing act, your teenage stepson is being bullied and your math whiz daughter has a once-in-a-lifetime opportunity that you can’t afford to pay for. That’s Jess’s life in a nutshell—until an unexpected knight-in-shining-armor offers to rescue them. Only Jess’s knight turns out to be Geeky Ed, the obnoxious tech millionaire whose vacation home she happens to clean. But Ed has big problems of his own, and driving the dysfunctional family to the Math Olympiad feels like his first unselfish act in ages . . . maybe ever.

One Plus One is Jojo Moyes at her astounding best. You’ll laugh, you’ll weep, and when you flip the last page, you’ll want to start all over again.

Review:

Jojo Moyes's particular genius for tender, character-driven drama and romance comes through in this story yet again.  The personalities of all the members of this motley family and the Ed Nicholls mesh so well, and add dimension and believability to the character drama.

Each chapter of the story switches perspective between the four main characters, which worked very well in my opinion, and I usually don't like switching POV's in books.  The characters are all so different from each other and it was important to get their own perspective in certain scenes that it made what is mostly a straightforward road trip romance, very poignant and emotional.  And when I realized that the road trip portion only comprised about three days in the character's lives, I was surprised that I felt like I had gone through so much with these characters because I was so invested in their lives.  I was impressed by how much depth there was to their relationship, after so short a time.

Which also helped make me completely invested in the sort of whirlwind romance between Jess and Ed.  I believed that they could feel that strongly for each other after so short of time, because the development of the characters was excellent, and the intensity of being cooped up in a car for hours on end, with that forced intimacy, made it very convincing.

All of the characters have hardships to overcome in this story, and  the fact that they all help each other through their traumas made this a wonderfully uplifting story to read.  Even through the parts of devastating emotion.  There's a message that if you are a good person, things will come out right and it's a message I very much believe in, and was glad to see made such a particular point in the story.  This book is heartwarming, emotional and beautifully told, I would highly recommend it!

(I received this book from the publisher or author for a fair and honest review.  I was not compensated for this review.)