One Love is the second in a series about Thomson, who lives in Hawaii and is heading off to college, whilst his girlfriend Greta is heading off to Italy. The story follows as Thomson battles with trying to maintain a long distance relationship whilst going through the motions of starting college.
This was quite a slow read, which isn't always a bad things, but I was often left wondering if much was going to actually happen. Although, it did pick up a little in the second half and I found myself enjoying this part of the story a lot more. In this part, I really appreciated the vivid descriptions of Italy and traveling around the city.
I do have to note that I read this book as a standalone, not realising that it was actually second in a series. Whilst many people have said it can easily be read as a standalone, I did feel that I was missing some back story and understanding on the characters especially in certain scenarios.

I recieved this book for free from NetGalley in exchange for an honest review.

I did not read the first book, but this seems to go fairly well as a stand alone.

I liked this book, but I didn't love it. I did not find myself very invested in the characters, and I am wondering if it is because I don't know the backstory about the main character from book one. It was a cute story, but a little predictable, and it didn't reel me in like I hoped it would. Might revisit it at a later date and read the first book as well.

If I was to summarise this book in one word it would unfortunately have to be: disappointing.

There was so much I disliked about it and so little I enjoyed, but I shall start with the positive.

—> The descriptions of Italy and the trip the boys took was probably the best bit of the whole novel. I love Italy and really enjoyed the way the author was able to tap into the unique sounds of the streets.

Unfortunately that’s probably the only positive thing I have to say, so buckle up:

—> I found, in my opinion, the writing to be totally uninspiring and Cabinian has this tendency to give a quick description of the characters when you meet them. I mean, she literally tells you a quick overview of what they look like, in a few sentences right in the middle of the story! It was so distracting and it happened too many times. I like to gradually discover elements of the characters, not be given a quick dating profile style biography as soon as they’re introduced!

She was white, had short brown hair, and her thighs were bigger than my waste.

Eye rolling for days with that one. What? You mean she’s a bit chunky?! Immediately remove her from the story and barely mention her again! (Which is pretty much exactly what happened.) See ya, Rochelle.

—> Which brings me on to the fact that it’s so repetitive in subject matter and in language. As a reader, I don’t need you to tell me something more than once but this was just like content was regurgitated over and over again and forced down your neck.

—> It was boring. Literally nothing happens until they get on the flight to Italy, we finally meet the long awaited Greta, only to read a page of dialogue and the boys are back out on the streets. Come on! I read 70% of the book for that?! Fuming.

—> We actually refer to women as trolls here. Working with teenage boys, I am well aware they can be very un-PC at times and sometimes they’re utterly vile, but did we really need an entire story where we treat all the female characters like ornaments on a dusty shelf? Especially when the author is female. No! No! and a thousand times: No!

—> I didn’t read the first novel and maybe I should have done because I really didn’t connect to the characters at all. I found them to be two dimensional and trite (oh and so, so whiny.)

—> All this book really needed was a story line. It finally looked like we were getting somewhere and it suddenly just ends! My jaw just dropped and I sat there looking like Marley’s Ghost. You can’t just end a novel in the climax to justify another book!

—> Overall, I thought it was a waste of time. Others here seem to have actually really enjoyed it though, so hey! maybe I’m wrong.


Thank you to NetGalley, Deanna Cabinian and Timpi Publishing for the chance to read this book in exchange for an honest review.

A BIG Thank You to NetGalley and Timpi Publishing for providing me a copy of “One Love” by Deanna Cabinian in exchange for my honest review.

Am I the only one who didn’t enjoy reading this book? I am seeing a lot of five star comments out there for “One Love” and I honestly didn’t find it that memorable.

The main problem I had with this book was that I couldn’t get invested in the love story of the main characters. I felt that Thompson doesn’t spend much in-person time with Charlotte or Greta throughout the story, but instead spends more time just reminiscing about Greta and what she is doing, which gets monotonous to read after a while. Almost every chapter involves Thompson thinking about how much he loves Greta and suspecting if she is cheating on him. As a result, I didn’t really care what happened in the end as I just wanted to finish the story for the sake of it.

The pacing is also very slow. Hardly anything interesting happens in the first half. To me, the story picked up only towards the end where Thompson and Ronnie started their journey to Italy. There is also a lot of unwanted information put in the story that has nothing to do with the plot. For instance, why do we need to know about Thompson writing a column about the new printers, or why the Asians need their own dorm in campus? It doesn’t have anything to do with the main story! I guess the author was trying to show how he matures as a person in college with his experiences while trying to maintain his long distance relationship in parallel, but the direction felt really out of place.

Coming to the characters themselves, Thompson and his friends are very lackluster. Ronnie in particular is very irritating. The only characters I actually liked was Charlotte and Kenny, and they were not even in the story that much.

The only part I actually enjoyed was the description that the author provides of Italy. She gives a nice scenic description of all the highlights of the country, and the fun way of experiencing it by foot. I feel like if I ever visit Rome, I would want to tour it exactly the way the characters do in the story. The writing skills of the author in general is commendable. She writes each incident (like what the characters eat and where they go) with interesting details that makes you want to experience it in person.

This is the second book in the “Thompson Lake” series, and I haven’t had the chance to read the first one yet. Perhaps if I had read the predecessor “One Night” first then I would have appreciated this more. However, since this story gives a lot of spoilers to what happens in the first book, I doubt I will be picking “One Night” anytime soon. Overall, “One Love” is a sweet concept, but it failed to impress me.