The One That Got Away by Charlotte Rixon Published by St. Martin's Publishing Group on August 15, 2023
Genres: Fiction / Coming of Age, Fiction / Romance / General, Fiction / Women
Pages: 336
Format: ARC, eBook
Source: NetGalley
"A stunning love story that had my heart racing from the first chapter and tears streaming down my face by the end. An instant favorite." ––Carley Fortune, #1 New York Times bestselling author of Meet Me at the Lake
Two years together.
Twenty years apart.
One day to change their story.2000. Benjamin’s world is turned upside down the night he meets Clara. Instinctively, he knows that they are meant for each other, but a devastating mistake on their last night at university will take their lives in very different directions.
20 years later, Clara has a high-profile job and a handsome husband. But despite the trappings of success, she isn't happy, and she knows that a piece of her heart still belongs to Benjamin, the boy she fell in love with years earlier. The boy whose life she fears she ruined.
When a bombing is reported in the city where they first met, Clara is pulled back to a place she tries not to remember and the first love she could never forget. Searching for Benjamin, Clara is forced to confront the events that tore them apart. But is it too late to put right what went wrong?
Across the miles and spanning decades, Charlotte Rixon's The One That Got Away is a sweeping, poignant story about growing up, growing apart, the people who first steal our hearts, and the surprising, winding roads that love can take us on, for readers of Jill Santopolo, Rosie Walsh, and Colleen Hoover.
My Review
Before I get started on my review of The One That Got Away by Charolette Rixon I have to give my thanks to Netgalley, St. Martins Press, and Charlotte Rixon herself for gifting me with this Digital Arc in exchange for my honest review. Everything I write here will be entirely my own thoughts and opinions. As always I will provide trigger warnings down below. Please be aware that this book has some heavy-hitting topics so please pay attention to those warnings below.
I do not even really know where to start with this book. There is so much going on as we follow two main characters throughout a twenty-year span and during that span we are bouncing between timelines and the character’s points of view. This story follows Clara and Benjamin and takes place in England during the 2000s. I am not saying all this to make it sound bad because honestly, that was one of my favorite things about the book. I enjoyed the two perspectives and going from timeline to timeline kept me moving through the book at a rather quick pace. I want to say that this book is a book about romance but for me, that just does not exactly fit. This book for me was about growing up, first loves, heartbreak, trauma, making mistakes, and trying to come back from all of those things that shaped the characters along the way. Like I said this book is heavy hitting.
Clara comes from a privileged background and grew up in London. She is two years older than her sister Cecily who happened to have had cancer when she was only four years old. I mention this because this traumatic experience really shapes the way that Clara views the world and navigates through it. There are a few lines in the book that really stuck out to me about Clara and her character and I am going to post it here so if you do not want any SPOILERS then look away.
No one understands that all those years ago when Cecily got sick, something fundamental shattered in Clara: the ability to trust, to feel safe in the world. The innocent, deep-seated faith that all things would ultimately be OK was gone, forever. And what was left in its place was a gaping fear that the worst things could happen when you least expected them.
Of course, this makes sense when you look at Clara’s character and see why she is the way she is. The poor girl experienced some serious trauma as a child and unfortunately, things like that just do not go away. However, I found Clara to be a wonderful character she was able to see things in Benjamin that he could not see in himself which I found to be lovely. Clara is anxiety-ridden and struggles with perfectionism. As the book goes on you will see that she in a sense becomes just a shell of herself. She blames herself for what happened all those years before and the guilt is eating her alive.
Benjamin comes from a smaller area and one that is poor. He becomes heavily invested in football as a young boy and makes one of the top teams as a child but his mental health makes it so he has to get done. His coach said something along the lines of not having a strong mind for the sport. Basically what I got out of it was that he was a sensitive kid which in my opinion has nothing to do with having a strong mind. I think what is important to acknowledge about Benjamin is that he also experienced trauma as a child. His mother was diagnosed with a form of cancer when he was just a young boy around middle school age. This is not the reason Benjamin got done with playing football it really had to do with his mental health. However, this did not interfere with his love of the game which never ended. It was something his father and him bonded over throughout the book. It was also one of the ways he made friends at Uni with his flatmates. It is my opinion that Benjamin does not think much of himself throughout the book and has a very defeating inner monologue. I felt for the poor guy for sure. Some things happen to Benjamin in his University life that I found to be absolutely heartbreaking. I am not going to mention them here because they would be terrible spoilers but maybe have some tissues at hand while you are reading.
Clara and Benjamin meet during their first year at Uni. They did not meet at the University because they both went to different schools so their meeting happened one night in a club with Clara on the floor crying and Benjamin running into her on his way out. Needless to say, they hit it off right away. They become inseparable from the start except for the three weeks Benjamin has to go back home and doesn’t contact Clara. He does not want to combine his life at school and her with his life at home which is why he keeps the reason for his trip home to himself. Do you remember how I said she really struggles with trust issues? So you can imagine that this does not go over well with Clara. She ends up making some poor decisions while he is gone that will ultimately have an impact on their relationship down the road. I am not going to say any more about that but their lives will take a giant turn which will ultimately change them forever.
If you are looking for a read that will keep you moving because you need to know what happens next then definitely pick this one up. I think that this would also be a good book to get one out of a reading slump well at least it would be for me. If you are interested in a story about first love, trauma, moving on, poor decisions, learning to live with what life throws at you, reinventing yourself and so much more then please pick this gem up. I thought that this was a wonderful story and it had me rooting for the two main characters throughout. I do want to say again though that I do not believe this book to be a romance novel at least not completely but more about first loves and the impact those loves can have on a person. I absolutely loved this story and will be picking more up from this author. Now before I get into the trigger warnings I wanted to leave you with this quote from the story that really stuck with me and for the life of me I can not remember who said it but here it is: A simple life with people I love. That’s all I’ve ever wanted. I mean really isn’t that all any of us want in life?
Trigger Warnings:
- Child Sexual Abuse
- Rape
- Cancer
- Parental Death
- Heart Attack
- Mental Health Struggles
- Suicide
- Bombing
- Parental Abandonment
- Drug and Alcohol Abuse
- Infidelity