Author: Emily Giffin
Format: Hardcover
Publisher: Ballantine Book
Publish Date: May 20, 2014
Source: BookSparks Summer Reading Challenge
What's the Story?:
From Goodreads.com: "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."
My Two Cents:
"The One and Only" is Emily Giffin's latest offering. I have really enjoyed some of her previous books and so I was looking forward to reading this book. The setting of this book is very different than Giffin's other books but a lot of the other great elements of her books are here! This is a great summer read!
In Texas, football is a religion. Shea has fully subscribed to that religion. She is still very much ingrained with her college team and her life still very much revolves around thinking or writing about her team. After her best friend's mother, who happens to be the wife of the football coach, dies, Shea begins thinking about her life and whether or not she is happy with the status quo. We get to see Shea's journey and while I didn't always agree with the choices that she made at all, she seemed like a real character and one that you still want to root for, hoping that things turn out a little differently for her.
The writing in this book continues to be good. I'm not really one for football (I watch it but I'm not a rabid fan), but Giffin makes the reader understand what it must feel like to be in that realm where football rules everything so even if we don't agree, we can see where the characters are coming from. I also appreciated the way that Giffin was able to handle some delicate subjects with a lot of care and heart. I read this book quickly because I wanted to see what happened next. This would be a great book for when you'
A new author for me and also the subject. Football is a bit of an unknown quantity in this part of the world. Sounds good.
ReplyDeleteI haven't read this one yet, but I probably will. Emily Giffin will be on tour here next week and I'm hoping to go with a friend to see her.
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