Book Review: Love The One You're With by Emily Griffin

One of my favorite parts of going to a thrift store is buying books. I love books but don't always have the dough to purchase them brand new. I never know what I'll find or what the books are about, I just pick them up and hoard them until I need a new book.

I recently finished reading Book One of A Song of Ice and Fire by George R.R. Martin- otherwise known as GAME OF THRONES!!! 

So before I continued on in my quest of hefty, dark, serious, mysterious books, I chose one that looked a little more light-hearted. Monday I started reading Love The One You're With by Emily Griffin and just finished a few moments ago.

 To buy the book, click here.

The story is set in New York, mostly, and there are some important parts that are set in Georgia as well. The story unravels one woman's idea of love, lust, fate, and "true love." It's sweet, simple, and at times redundant. I did actually enjoy the read, but I couldn't help but feel like it was slightly adolescent for a topic so rooted in adult feelings. The woman, by the name of Ellen, is married to a wealthy lawyer from Atlanta, Georgia. His family is the proper southern "how do you do" type of folk with a totally intact family. She is a Photographer from Pittsburgh who lost her mother in her young teen years. She met said husband after a brutal break up with a New York journalist. Her husband is actually the brother to her best friend Margot who is also a swanky southern belle with all the perfect trimmings of a young lady. Despite her vanity and controlling attitude, Margot is actually a great friend and humble woman. 

After years of relationship with Andy, whom is her golf playing, rich, lawyer husband, she runs into Leo on the streets of New York. Since her relationship never got closure and he had been her first love, she becomes obsessed with him and begins to feel like he was "the one" and that she settled with Andy. This becomes apparent as the story unfolds. She did settle with Andy because not a single thing is wrong with him. He's rich but humble, he's handsome but not vain, he's perfect but not arrogant. He dotes on Ellen, he's wiling to provide her with anything she wants or desires. However, she feels a lack of tension between them, and she feels something so much more electric with Leo.

As time goes by the story takes us to Atlanta, where she becomes the stay at home wife in a large and costly home. Andy joins the family practice and plays golf with "the guys." She's left to entertain guest and sit alone while her best friend is pregnant in the same town, but somehow such a distance away. Motherhood being the center of Margo's world, and Andy back in his home territory leaves Ellen feeling suffocated and alone. So she begins to use Leo as the escape route, always wondering "What if? "

I won't let you know what happens in the end, but it's a pretty quick read. I only read when I'm at work, since it is my safe haven for books. Reading with a two-and-a-half year old is not possible. I read in between projects at work, and on breaks.