One Day

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Critics

• One Day

  No apologies for including David Nicholls’ word-of-mouth best-seller. For those of you who haven’t yet read ONE DAY, get yourself a copy and spend a thoroughly enjoyable few hours in the company of Emma and Dexter as they do that thing of not quite g ... (read full critics)

  bookgroup published on Wed, 2 Mar 2011

• One Day by David Nicholls - Review by Waterstone's Books Quarterly Online

  Dexter knew who Emma was. But it was only after their graduation celebrations that they finally got together. By mutual agreement they then went their separate ways, only occasionally making contact. This heartbreaking love story is set on every St S ... (read full critics)

  wbqonline published on Wed, 29 Sep 2010

65 Reviews

• 5 people find this helpful

  *** This comment contains spoilers! ***

  

  Uno sbadiglio ripetuto ogni anno. Come se Nicholls avesse riscritto La Solitudine dei Numeri Primi incrociandola con De Carlo (uno a scelta, sono tutti uguali, queruli e irritanti). Però a suo onore, Nicholls sa scrivere molto meglio dei nostri due, pur con un’idea narrativa che non è il massimo del ... (continue)

  Uno sbadiglio ripetuto ogni anno. Come se Nicholls avesse riscritto La Solitudine dei Numeri Primi incrociandola con De Carlo (uno a scelta, sono tutti uguali, queruli e irritanti). Però a suo onore, Nicholls sa scrivere molto meglio dei nostri due, pur con un’idea narrativa che non è il massimo dell’originalità (citando a memoria c’è un meraviglioso film con Alan Alda, Lo stesso giorno il prossimo anno). Em e Dex (Emma e Dexter) sono due neolaureati che finiscono a letto la sera della laurea. Lui, bello e ricco (e stupido), lei bella e intelligente (e povera). Lui borghese, lei alternativa. Ai cliché è difficile sfuggire! E’ evidente da subito che l’amore è pronto a sbocciare, ma entrambi – Dex nei rari momenti di sobrietà, Em quando non è sommersa dall’acidità – si rendono conto che non è mai il momento. E così il povero lettore viene rimpallato di anno in anno nella vita di questi due sfigati in attesa del lieto fine.
  Dex tenta di bersi tutte le bottiglie del Regno e di farsi tutte le piste di coca mentre brucia una carriera televisiva mai realmente nata, Em lavora in una pseudo compagnia teatrale fa la cameriera insegna scrive. Anche la loro vita sentimentale è un discreto fallimento: Dex sposa una diafana e frigida fanciulla, Em si mette col re dei piagnoni. E poi bum, si incontrano a Parigi e l’amore trionfa (nel frattempo lui ha fatto una figlia e lei un libro di successo).
  Sembra che finalmente un raggio di sole riscaldi le loro povere vite, ma in brutto giorno di pioggia …. (Nicholls deve avere pensato che così sarebbe stato troppo scontato) ta-dà, colpo di scena finale, l’idea più banale e trita da Love Story in giù. La lacrima facile non scende dagli occhi di questa inaridita lettrice (la sottoscritta, che pure piange per un nonnulla), anzi un sospiro di sollievo si alza per essere arrivata alla fine. E invece no! Ci sono altri tre capitoli di sciocchezze inutili, per spiegare come da amanti erano diventati amici.
  Noioso e verboso, quasi oltre il limite. Lo salva una certa grazia narrativa, pur se la descrizione dei personaggi è incredibilmente superficiale e fino a metà ci ammorba con la quantità di alcool che ingeriscono.

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  Tittirossa said on Dec 26, 2011 about the Others edition | 5 feedbacks

• 5 people find this helpful

  

  David Nicholls creates believable characters with flaws that we all share. The style makes the book fast paced but the reader's interest is kept up by good prose and empathy. Comments on British life and the class base without trying to shape your opinion. Unmissable.

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  Lunarossa said on Jun 17, 2010 about the Others edition | Add your feedback

• 2 people find this helpful

  

  真心愛一個人的時候，無論曾為他多麼傻氣，回首也不會有任何後悔。

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  木石前盟 said on Jan 14, 2012 about the Others edition | Add your feedback

• One Day

  Very easy to read, can be moving at a certain point it's just another love story, It's ok to read on the bus, train certainly not a masterpiece.

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  A Lailapace said on Feb 13, 2012 about the Others edition | Add your feedback

• 

  SO INVOLVING! full of humor and drama, surely not a conventional love story.
  You have to read it!

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  Rossella said on Feb 10, 2012 about the Paperback edition | Add your feedback

• 

  This is a book that has left me with very mixed feelings. I liked the the framework of this story, the idea of checking in on the progress of the characters lives on just one day every year over a period of two decades. Nicholls does this well, inserting some back story in each chapter to allow the ... (continue)

  This is a book that has left me with very mixed feelings. I liked the the framework of this story, the idea of checking in on the progress of the characters lives on just one day every year over a period of two decades. Nicholls does this well, inserting some back story in each chapter to allow the reader to keep up. But too much back story drains the reader's patience. There was a lot more editing needed, I think.
  I liked the central premise that while certain days of the year have meaning for all of us, we rarely reflect on the fact that one of them will mark our death. Nicholls plots most of the significant events of the story on the same day every year, the 15th of July and while that is pushing coincidence to an extreme, that's the writer's prerogative so we can't really find fault with it. What the reader can complain about is the overuse of melodrama, the many occasions when the characters missed each others' potentially life changing phone calls, messages, letters etc., by minutes. A writer can do this once in a story and get away with it but not in every other chapter.
  The reader also needs to be able to identify with the characters a little if he is to stay with them through two decades of their lives. That means understanding who they are. Dexter is easy to understand but not Emma. Nicholls clearly wants us to identify with Emma, to root for her through the long decades and the even longer middle sections of the book. But there is one big barrier to our understanding of this character: how has she fallen so deeply in love with Dexter after spending less than twenty four hours with him during which time he has repeatedly disappointed her in one way or another. Nicholls makes her wise enough to see right through Dexter on that very first day and yet he simultaneously makes that first day the beginning of a lifelong, mostly one-sided love affair. Baffling.
  I'm also a little baffled at the massive world wide success of this mediocre book but then, I can always rely on that most quotable of writers, Oscar Wilde to see me right: to disagree with three quarters of the public is one of the first requisites of sanity.

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  Top of the pile said on Feb 9, 2012 | Add your feedback

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Book Details

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• English Books
• Hardcover 448 Pages
• ISBN-10: 0340896965
• ISBN-13: 9780340896969
• Publisher: Hodder
• Pub date: Jan 01, 2009
• Also available as: Paperback, Others and eBook
• In other languages: other languages 繁體書, Deutsche Bücher, Libros en Español, Livros em Português, llibres en català, Libri Italiani, Svenska böcker

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