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The One & Only Pages: 433 Format: eARC
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Thirty-three-year-old Shea Rigsby has spent her entire life in Walker, Texas—a small college town that lives and dies by football, a passion she unabashedly shares. Raised alongside her best friend, Lucy, the daughter of Walker’s legendary head coach, Clive Carr, Shea was too devoted to her hometown team to leave. Instead she stayed in Walker for college, even taking a job in the university athletic department after graduation, where she has remained for more than a decade.
But when an unexpected tragedy strikes the tight-knit Walker community, Shea’s comfortable world is upended, and she begins to wonder if the life she’s chosen is really enough for her. As she finally gives up her safety net to set out on an unexpected path, Shea discovers unsettling truths about the people and things she has always trusted most—and is forced to confront her deepest desires, fears, and secrets.
Thoughtful, funny, and brilliantly observed, The One & Only is a luminous novel about finding your passion, following your heart, and, most of all, believing in something bigger than yourself . . . the one and only thing that truly makes life worth living.
The One & Only by Emily Giffin is the first book I’ve read that Emily has written. [This is also my first read for the Summer Reading Challenge 2014 from BookSparks PR. Yay!] Okay, so, yeah. I am having a bit of trouble forming my thoughts on this story. I cannot stop thinking about it and the different characters and just all the things in the book. Let’s see. I’m going to try to form a review that makes sense, because mostly, my brain is just going “oh my goodness!” from this story. 🙂
For nearly three-fourths of the story, I kept feeling like I was on the fence. Just back and forth on my feelings about everything…about Shea, about her as a person and her choices. There were some moments where I really just found her unbelievable and silly and just wanted to shake her. There were other times that I really liked her and could understand where she was coming from. Shea has a lot of issues. It seems like all the relationships in her life – friends, boyfriends, family, just every one – is awkward and strange and has some moments where it just doesn’t seem real. The one relationship that does seem real and uncomplicated in her life is her relationship with football.
The football aspects of this story were actually some of my favorite parts. As an Ohio girl who is a huge football fan, and a Dallas Cowboys fan, I really enjoyed those elements of the book. I liked football as the cornerstone that brought everything together. I think without it, the story would have been a lot harder for me to accept and enjoy. I actually found myself more caught up in the Walker games than anything else!
I spent a lot of this story feeling angsty (I don’t think that’s a word) and anxious and all caught up in so much craziness. I felt awkward a lot of the times that Shea did. I think if I was Shea, I would have lost it. But the story came around and, just like a win on the last second of a game, pulled it together for me. The tears came, and I felt satisfied with the ending of the story. I love when that happens…even though I was engrossed in the story and didn’t want to put it down, I still didn’t know if I was going to like it until I read the last couple of pages. In the end, and reflecting on the story since finishing it…I did enjoy it. There was a lot I liked about it and ultimately, the story kept me intrigued from start to finish. What more can you ask for?! The One & Only by Emily Giffin kept me thinking about the story even when I wasn’t reading it. I think it’s one that will stick with me for a while. I look forward to picking up another Emily Giffin book sometime.
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