One Day – book appraisal”This book is ‘the greatest literary love of my life,’ says one exultant reader on a book sales site.

“It was so puke inducing I almost threw it in the pool,” says another of the same holiday read.

The first reader went on to say “When I finished One Day, red-eyed in the early hours of a spring morning, I don’t think I read another novel for a couple of months. To have done so would have felt like being unfaithful to of the greatest literary love of my life.”

A tad over the top maybe but David Nicholls’s “One Day” seems to have that effect on people. There are no “Well it was OK but…” reactions. People love it or hate it. Despite remaining in the” Amazon bestseller charts for more than 18 months and getting 750 rave reviews on the bookselling site there are 102 one-star “it’s a clunker” type comments. Criticisms include “The characters are unlikeable, selfish and smug, The plot clichéd.  The ending came as a blessed relief.

There are bound to be differences of opinion about any book. But for somebody to insist any reader with half a soul must understand that One Day is the best British novel of the past 20 years is sheer hyperbole.

My view, it’s a decent but overlong Mills and Boon. I did not finish it but I’m a man.

Structurally, it is perfect in the way that an Elmore Leonard, James Patterson or Robert Ludlum is perfect, big on plot devices deployed to keep the readers wondering what will happen on the next page but devoid of any compelling ideas so the aftertaste is as bland as that of hospital food. The main plot device is that each chapter features the same day a year later encapsulating the ideal solution to the novelist’s greatest challenge of knowing what to leave out. It is no coincidence how many other writers have turned green. “The jealousy nearly made me puke,” said Marian Keyes. “I wish I’d written this book.”  If you have ever read any of Marian Keyes chick lit pot boilers you will understand the value of that comment. In a three hundred page novel Ms Keyes will fill two hundred pages with detailed descriptions of what each character is wearing in every scene, padded out with biographical notes on the fashion designers responsible for the overpriced atrocities.