Review: One Plus One by Jojo Moyes

Title: One Plus One
Author: Jojo Moyes
Format: Hardcover
Publisher: Pamela Dorman Books
Publish Date: July 1, 2014 (Today!)
Source: I received a copy from the publisher; however, this did not affect my review.

What's the Story?:

From Goodreads.com: "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."

My Two Cents:

"One Plus One" is a new fiction offering from Jojo Moyes. I feel like I'm sort of late to the party when it comes to reading one of Moyes' books. After reading this one, I know that I really want to go back to read some of her other books, especially the historical fiction ones. "One Plus One" is the story of Jess, a young woman whose life has been turned upside down. Everything she wants doesn't seem to happen. Everything that she dreads seems to happen sevenfold. This book is how she copes with her changing marital and family situation and how the life equations that are out there do not always seem to add up the way that they do.

When the book opens, Jess's husband is gone. She has no idea when he's coming back and he won't give her a straight answer. Jess wants to send her daughter to a school where she can excel in math but doesn't have the money. Jess's stepson is being bullied. She has a lot on her plate but only gets more as she goes along. Enter Mr. Nicholls, a guy who is going through his own trouble but will eventually become quite swoonworthy as the book goes on. I liked the relationship development between Jess and Mr. Nicholls (as she and the children call him all of the time). I dove right into Jess's story and was rooting for her right from the beginning and for both her and Mr. Nicholls once they start traveling together. You really feel for her and Moyes writes her and many of the other characters in the book that they feel real and like people that you might want to come across in your every day life.

It is not hard to see why Moyes has become so popular if her other books are written the way that this one was. She really gives the story and these characters a lot of feeling and emotion. We laugh when they laugh and our hearts break a bit when they are hurt. These are characters that I will be thinking about for a very long time.