Miss You
A Novel
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3.8 • 16 Ratings
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- $11.99
Publisher Description
What if you walked by the love of your life and didn’t even know it?
“A witty, poignant and uplifting story of two lives criss-crossing over the years, with near-miss after near-miss. . . . I couldn’t put it down.” —Sophie Kinsella
Today is the first day of the rest of your life is the motto on a plate in the kitchen at home, and Tess can’t get it out of her head, even though she’s in Florence for a final, idyllic holiday before university. Her life is about to change forever—but not in the way she expects.
Gus and his parents are also on holiday in Florence. Their lives have already changed suddenly and dramatically. Gus tries to be a dutiful son, but longs to escape and discover what sort of person he is going to be.
For one day, the paths of an eighteen-year-old girl and boy criss-cross before each returns to England.
Over the course of the next sixteen years, life and love will offer them very different challenges. Separated by distance and fate, there’s no way the two of them are ever going to meet each other properly. . . . Or is there?
PUBLISHERS WEEKLY
In Eberlen's debut novel, Tess and Gus first meet in 1997, while traveling in Florence. Both are awaiting the results of their college entrance exams, and both seem to have bright futures: Tess as a writer and Gus as a physician. Gus, however, is awash in grief and guilt following the death of his overbearing older brother, unreasonably blaming himself for the fatal accident. And Tess is about to experience a loss of her own, as her mother's cancer advances and Tess's future grows less certain. Over the course of the next 16 years, as they individually fumble through romantic shortcomings, familial frustrations, and professional setbacks, the two narrowly miss one another several more times; these missed connections, however, are never particularly clever or dramatic and the narrative fails to build a case that the two are, in fact, meant to be together. In the end, Eberlen's novel is more successful as a chronicle of the way grief and loss shapes young people's life choices than it is as a romance. Consequently, the denouement lands unconvincingly.
Customer Reviews
Best Book I’ve Read in the last Five Years
This book was amazing. It had a grip on me and wouldn’t let go until I finished the last page. Without giving anything away, I will say the story, the words, the life lessons are very poetic. Please read this book.