REVIEW: THE ONE & ONLY, BY EMILY GIFFIN

 

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 Thoughts: In the beginning of The One and Only, I had mixed feelings about the book. I am not a football addict, and I feared that the game, its players, and its fans would take over the story. But I started caring about Shea right away, and I found that I could relate to her feelings about her hometown and about family, even though my own experiences were quite different.

Watching how her unique friendship with Coach Clive Carr, her best friend’s father, started changing after his wife’s death caught me up in their story, and I couldn’t help rooting for them. I knew that they were about to encounter a lot of push back from people, especially Shea’s friend Lucy.

The slow build of passion between Coach and Shea allowed time for her to experience some other relationships that did not work out, and which increased the pull between them. When it looked like their love was doomed, I hoped for some kind of miracle. The quick turnaround at the end was a bit much, though, and left me feeling cheated out of more special moments. But overall, I had to keep turning the pages, wondering how the characters’ lives would come together. 4 stars.

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