Book Review: One True Loves

Spoilers!

Love finds us where we are at the time, not who we once were or would like to be. Only with enough time and distance can we truly reflect how much we are changed by other people and events in our lives. Sometimes a true love, then, is a finite moment in time rather than “for all time.” Taylor Jenkins Reid has a new unique premise to demonstrate this in her 2016 book, One True Loves. I went in to Reid’s book looking for a palate cleanser after a lengthy crime book only to find myself riveted. Certainly, I didn’t expect to start and finish the book over the course of a Sunday morning. But I am, if nothing else, an unyielding sap.

Reid doesn’t waste time establishing the unique premise. In fact, I had to read the opening sentence a second time to make sure I read it right: I am finishing up dinner with my family and my fiancé when my husband calls. (I don’t read the back cover summaries before diving into a book, hence my confusion.) Emma is with Sam, on the cusp of marrying him, when Jesse, her previous husband who was presumed dead after a helicopter crash, calls her to say he’s still alive. What.

In the before all this, Emma grows up in the shadow of her sister, Marie, and the pressure of what appears to be her parents’ set life journey for her: to take over their Acton, Massachusetts bookstore. She doesn’t quite know where she fits in, but she knows it’s not Acton, and it’s not as a bookseller. At this point in her life, as a 14 year old, she doesn’t even like books! While at the bookstore, she meets someone her parents hired, Sam. Yes, the same Sam. They seem to hit it off, but for whatever reason, Emma doesn’t lean into it. They part. Shortly thereafter, Emma falls for Jesse, the head of the swim team. Turns out, Jesse feels just like Emma: stuck. He doesn’t want to train to be an Olympic swimmer like her parents desire. Like Emma, he wants to travel and see the world. Their connection and love is forged in shared desires and dreams. In seeing each other for who they really are, not how others see them or want them to be. They’re together for nearly a decade in Los Angeles, her as a travel journalist (which is ironic since Marie wanted to be the writer of the family) and he as a nature documentarian. Between their jobs and their free time, they see much of the world. So much so, that Emma actually becomes nostalgic and longs for Aston. She begins to see it in a new way, less so stifling and more so comforting. In their mid-20s, Jesse proposes to her. She says “yes.” The day before their one-year anniversary, Jesse jumps at the opportunity to go to Alaska, a place he hasn’t seen yet, but Emma has. Emma’s somewhat okay with that. Off he goes. That’s when the helicopter crash occurs. Only the pilot’s body is recovered, with Jesse and the others aboard presumed dead.

After his presumed death, Emma spirals into grief and despair. She can’t imagine continuing to live after Jesse’s death, her “one true love’s” death, much less ever finding another “one true love.” But after two years, and a return to Aston to live with her parents and working at the bookstore (life has a way of folding back on itself, I suppose!), Emma decides she wants to learn the piano. Another way of saying that is she’s become a person who wants to learn the piano. In the wake of her grief, Emma was broken and remade anew. She’s not the same person who was jet-setting the world with Jesse. Reid offers this great quote from Emma’s self-reflection, “I had predicated my life on the idea that I wanted to see everywhere extraordinary, but I’d come to realize that extraordinary is everywhere.” What a lovely, resonant notion. Emma enters a music store only to run into Sam, who helps her find the right affordable piano. He then tries again what he tried more than 15 years prior, asking her out. Emma is hesitant this time because of her life experience, but she eventually says “yes.” They fall for each other in a way that’s different than how she and Jesse fell for each other. This love is more tender, bone-deep, intimate than it is grandiose and adventurous. Before fully going all in with Sam, she writes a letter to Jesse explaining how she needed to move forward (not “move on,” but forward) after her grief into a life where she could love again.

So, that brings us to the present day where Jesse is returning to Acton. Alive. Sam essentially “let’s Emma go” because he doesn’t want to be in the position of holding her back and her staying out of pity or a sense of obligation. Essentially, Emma needs to decide which “true love” she wants. The husband from her previous life or the soon-to-be husband of her new life. What happened with Jesse was after the helicopter crash, he survived for a time on a remote island (and island is a generous word for it) until finding enough strength and courage to swim again through the open Pacific until a ship rescued him. Like Emma, Jesse also isn’t the same person he was when they married. How could you be after surviving something like that? And wistfully, he hopes he and Emma can start where they left off, as if nothing has actually changed.

During all of this, by the way, because those life experiences changed Emma, and becoming a mother changed Marie, their relationship is mended and stronger than ever. I thought that was a cute side plot.

Jesse and Emma go away for a few days to Jesse’s parents’ cabin in Maine to see if there is anything to be rekindled or if the flame is truly gone. At first, it seems like no time has passed romantically and lustily. I felt bad for Sam, even if I understood Emma and Jesse’s actions. But Emma comes to realize she’s only playing a role, which is the role of the Emma Jesse knew, not the Emma she is now. Upon realizing that, she knows it won’t work with Jesse. They’re just not the same people anymore, which means they aren’t the same “Jesse and Emma” anymore. Now, I was happy for Sam! Although if I was him, I would still be devastated that the woman I was going to marry slept with her previous husband multiple times, incredibly unique circumstances or not. Worse still, even after Emma realizes it won’t work and she’s going to go back to Acton to hopefully marry Sam, she has sex one more time with Jesse. A lets-get-it-out-of-our-system-one-more-time kind of sex. That I can’t understand and puts Emma more in the “wrong” category, if you ask me. Nonetheless, she does return home and Sam does take her back. Later on, Jesse has also found love again and he understands the decision Emma made.

Reid is so good. This isn’t her best book I’ve read so far, as I liked this year’s Atmosphere and 2019’s Daisy Jones and The Six more because they had more meat on the bone, as it were, but at the heart of all those books of Reid’s is love and again, I’m nothing if not a sap. I devoured this book for a reason because it spoke to my own experiences, both with my parents and a past “one true love.” I highly recommend it to those who have also been going through Reid’s catalog of books.