"If You're Not the One" by Jemma Forte

On the outside, Jennifer has the perfect life.  She has a husband, two wonderful kids, a lovely house, good friends.  But she’s not completely happy and lately, she’s been wondering if maybe she married the wrong man.  What if she got it wrong and was meant to be with someone else?

When a fight with her husband leads to a terrible accident, Jennifer is able to face this question head on.  While lying in a coma, she has the opportunity to see just what life would have been like if she had stayed with one of her ex-boyfriends.  What if she had jetted off to Australia with Aidan, the sexy and carefree guy she met on a beach in Greece?  Or what if she had stayed with Tim, the man who created a networking website that everyone in the world was using?  Or Steve, the sweet, loving, and doting DIY guy?  

Was she really supposed to marry one of those guys, rather than her husband Max?  And more importantly, what will she do about it if she ever wakes from her coma?

If You’re Not the One, by Jemma Forte, is a novel that honestly and realistically addresses that question many of us have at times in our lives, the “what-if?” 

This is a very interesting book and one I very much enjoyed reading.  At first, I wasn’t sure how I felt about the subject or how it would play out.  The whole “what-if” is a very dangerous question and I thought that this book was going to be too light to deal with it.  But this ended up being different than I expected.  It takes the subject very seriously, and Forte does a great job of portraying an unhappy woman in a difficult marriage without being down about the whole institution in general.  In other words, she very honestly captures what many women go through in their marriages.

My big criticism of the book is the way that it is structured.  The book jumps around from past and present, and even in the present it jumps between a week before the accident and when Jennifer is in the coma.  When it goes into the past, it jumps between the different men which are obviously at different times.  

I would have preferred the book to have a bit more continuity.  What would have been perfect for me is if it started with the week that led up to the accident then started to look at the past.  It could have gone to Aidan, then the present, Tim, then the present, Steve, then the present, then how she met Max.  And then to her decision of what to do.  If it had occurred this way, it probably would have been a 5 star book for me.

This book is easy to read but will definitely get you thinking.  All throughout the book I thought, I don’t think I would want to know.  Maybe that has to do with how I feel about life right now, but who knows what would have been.  And I definitely want to leave it at that - who knows!  This is a very unique premise for a book though and that definitely makes it a worthwhile read.  Some people may hope for a different ending, but I think the rest of the book makes up for it.

I received a copy of this book courtesy of the publisher through Netgalley.  The opinions expressed above are my own.