This audio is so well performed! Enhances Siobhan Davis’ brilliant words and makes the emotion all the more heady and immersive. I love how beautifully the performances capture the heart of this story.
Book review:
No one breaks and heals the heart quite as exquisitely as Siobhan Davis! What a powerfully emotive and utterly mesmerizing tale of devastation and restoration. It’s a story as beautiful as it is brave, as tender as it is bold. The One I Want is simply stunning from start to finish. Emotionally immersive and deliciously dramatic, with angst so thick you could choke. Siobhan deftly unravels the human heart into all its raw and jagged and complicated pieces on the page. Prepare to feel this one in your every fiber! Truly, this Siobhan Davis at her finest!
Ultimately, it’s really hard for me to talk much about what makes this story so brilliant and so emotionally compelling without spoiling details- and this book is best FELT just as our characters do. Without knowing where fate will lead them, experiencing the highs and lows of both the unpredictable nature of life and love AND the growing pains of evolving as humans, of figuring out who we are and what (or who) we want. And I want you to experience this story JUST as that. But know this- Siobhan Davis is undoubtedly the queen of love triangles, and this is perhaps her most complicated and angsty yet. What makes Siobhan so brilliant isn’t just the conflicted feelings she raises in us, how she makes us double and desire just like our heroine. No- it’s not just the angst she inspires that makes her great. Though to be clear- this is a tour de force showing of ANGST. A turbulent vornado of emotions and heartache. But what makes her so great is how she juxtaposes the delicious complications of the love triangle against the existential awakening of our characters. It’s not JUST about romance, about choosing your “one”- because as triangles show, sometimes there is more than one “one” your heart can love. Rather, it’s about our characters understanding how love can show them different paths, can expose different parts of ourselves, can help us settle into just who we are, or at times morph or bend us in ways we weren’t meant to bend. Love can catalyze the journey of self- and sometimes your “one” is the very soul that amplifies the most YOU in yourself. Our heroine is trying to figure all that out while struggling to love two- just who she is, what she wants, and most of all, what choices get her closer to the core of herself, what choices lead her to the ONE she wants to be, not just the one she wants for herself. Every moment, every choice, every heartbreak is a piece in that puzzle- Siobhan elevates the conflict of choosing into the art of finding yourself. And I loved every word.
This story builds on a dramatic “what if” concept and paints two very different but equally impactful love stories. And there are so many things to unpack- how love can not be enough, how love is unexpected, how love can co-exist with two people and split the heart. What I love most of all is that LOVE is never really a question- this is not an easy love triangle, one with a clear and decided victor straight from the first page. Love truly DOES exist with both men, in a true and seemingly limitless capacity. It’s not about one love being bigger or being more real. Rather it’s about one love being more RIGHT. About how love might not be a choice, but how you give and express that love is. How love is both about need and choice- not about completion but about fulfillment. And it shows that can and should be work- that doing right by someone else and yourself is more than just giving them your heart, it’s about figuring out how to grow together, forgiveness and grace, and most of all making hard choices and compromises without truly compromising yourself fully. .And in that lens, the man Stevie ends up with this was clearly the ONLY one her heart could truly belong to- even if they journey to get there is painful, SO angsty, and full of obstacles.
Grab your tissues and your wine- and then grab some more. You’ll fall deep into both love stories, and if you’re like me, you’ll cry as much as you smile. But in the end, Siobhan gives us what she does best- a breathtaking, memorable, and heart-healing romance that pulses in the heart.