THE ONE YOU CAN'T FORGET was not a book I had anticipated,
I had thought that last year's outstanding THE ONES
WHO GOT AWAY had been a one-off. Naturally, I was
curious to see how Roni Loren would pull this off, and I
confess I had not read the blurb in its entirety until I
started the novel. Rebecca had intrigued me in the first
book, but upon reading the description for THE ONE YOU
CAN'T FORGET, I couldn't help thinking that she was quite
the unlucky one.
To be honest, I still am not sure what to think of THE ONE
YOU CAN'T FORGET. What surprised me most of all is that THE
ONE YOU CAN'T FORGET stands entirely on its own, which made
me wonder how the book will be perceived by readers who have
read book one and those who haven't. THE ONE YOU CAN'T
FORGET is basically a romance between two broken people,
starting with an enemies-to-lovers trope. I would have
preferred that Rebecca had not been involved in Wes'
divorce; her being a divorce attorney was more than enough
to rub him the wrong way, and there were more than enough
coincidences without this one, especially since Wes rescues
her from the mugging; it felt a bit contrived. THE ONE YOU
CAN'T FORGET also starts rather slowly; I didn't feel all
that information about Rebecca's case was justified; that
she'd had a bad day at the office with a few details would
have sufficed for that fateful Friday when she got mugged.
Rebecca, a survivor of the Long Acre High Prom shooting,
has, for the most part, recovered from her ordeal, the
mugging at gun point resurrects her fears, she has a panic
attack, and I think Ms. Loren dealt realistically with
Rebecca's issues following the massacre, which had occurred
twelve years before, although I would have been more rattled
after the mugging. Wes and Rebecca are immediately attracted
to each other, and I was expecting a whole lot of drama when
Wes recalled that she had been his ex-wife's attorney, but
it was, strangely enough, settled very quickly.
A few things were problematic for me: Rebecca is thirty-one,
Wes in his thirties, and for almost the first half of the
book, I felt I was reading about young adults -- in their
late teens or very early twenties -- it was cute and light,
but as neared the end, they acted like thirtysomethings when
things got rocky, but the connection between Wes and Rebecca
was always evident, their love felt real. I felt there were
a lot of repetitions: scenes we had witnessed were then
repeated in their entirety to another character, and there
were way too many details about inconsequential things that
brought little to the story, such as talk about food -- even
though Wes is a chef, a lot of it was superfluous. Although
some drama stems from Rebecca's high school ordeal, most of
it revolves on the underprivileged kids Wes is helping while
he's rebuilding his life, the mugging, and the consequences
of having a dreadful father. I'm still on the fence about a
few things, mostly the mugging. I don't believe I would
have done what Rebecca did concerning the mugger, and
frankly, I don't understand why she did it, and her actions
during an incident towards the end seemed quite a stretch to
me. I'm not a mental health professional, but still, it had
me scratching my head. THE ONE YOU CAN'T FORGET is a
surprisingly quick read, the story is nicely wrapped up, but
ending basically on a sex scene seemed a little weird. One
thing is certain though, I truly admire Roni Loren for her
daring move of basing a whole series on the groundbreaking
and outstanding THE ONES
WHO GOT AWAY.
The world admires her as a survivor. But that impression
would crumble if people knew her secret. She didn't deserve
to be the one who got away. But nothing can change the past,
so she's thrown herself into her work. She can't dwell if
she never slows down.
Wes Garrett is trying to get back on his feet after losing
his dream restaurant, his money, and half his damn mind in a
vicious divorce. But when he intervenes in a mugging and
saves Rebecca—the attorney who helped his ex ruin him—his
simple life gets complicated.
Their attraction is inconvenient and neither wants more than
a fling. But when Rebecca's secret is put at risk, both
discover they could lose everything, including what they
never realized they needed: each other
She laughed and kissed him. This morning she'd melted
down. But somehow this man had her laughing and turned on
only a few hours later. Everything inside her felt buoyed.
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