It Was Always You by Emma Cooper Book Review

Welcome to my review of It Was Always You by Emma Cooper. I loved the blurb for this book and thought it would be perfect for me but unfortunately it wasn’t quite what I expected.

Click me to go to my Review

Synopsis

On the last night in October 1999 the clocks went back, and Ella and Will’s love began.

A teenage Ella sat around a bonfire drinking with her future husband and her oldest friend Cole.

As Ella wandered away from the group, she found herself leaning against a derelict
archway before passing out.

The next day, Ella remembered fractured images of a conversation with a woman
in a green coat and red scarf but dismissed it as a drunken dream.

Twenty-three years later, with her marriage to Will in trouble, and Cole spiralling out of
control, Ella opens a gift which turns her life upside down: a green coat and red scarf.

When she looks in the mirror, the woman from the archway is reflected back at her.

As the last Sunday in October arrives, Ella is faced with a choice.
Would she choose a different life, if she could do it again?

About The Author

EMMA COOPER is the author of highly acclaimed book club fiction novels and is known for mixing humour with darker emotional themes.

Her debut, The Songs of Us, was snapped up in multiple pre-empts and auctions and was short-listed for the RNA contemporary novel of the year award. Her work has since been translated into seven different languages.

Emma has always wanted to be a writer – ever since childhood, she’s been inventing characters (her favourite being her imaginary friend ‘Boot’) and is thrilled that she now gets to use this imagination to bring to life all of her creations.

She is now also an editor for Jericho Writers, where she has worked with traditionally published authors, as well as new aspiring writers.

Emma spends her spare time writing novels, drinking wine and watching box-sets with her partner of twenty-eight years, who still makes her smile every day.

My Review

Will and Ella are childhood sweethearts they have been together since they were teenagers and now have two lovely children, the second of which is off to uni, the first having already moved out. Suddenly Will drops a bombshell that he wants a divorce, so Ella turns to her oldest friend, Cole, an alcoholic who appears to have been a third wheel for most of her marriage.

From there we delve into their lives Then, back when they first got together and Now as things are currently. Alongside this there is some time travel involved and Ella questions whether, if she could go back and make changes that fateful day when she first spoke to Will, she would change her life completely. Maybe he would have gone on to become a famous pop star and she a famous artist.

The first 40% or s of this book was mostly character building which would then lead into a plot building where the characters become almost irrelevant. I found it hard to get through when I didn’t feel any connection to any of the main characters and didn’t really care what happened to them. 

There are some tough parts that I didn’t feel were necessary to add which left an unsavoury taste, for example Ella’s sexual acts with her husband at the beginning which was completely inappropriate and left her complaining of a bruised leg. I think, had it been the other way round, there would have been outrage at such a situation.

I expected this to be an adventure of Ella daydreaming about what life could have been like if she made different decisions, but it wasn’t like that at all. She sees a hypnotist which was quite interesting but the whole thing felt quite long and drawn out.

I didn’t enjoy the characters as, despite all the development, they felt flat and I didn’t feel like I knew much about them aside from the very basics, Ella is smug and arty, Will is handsome and Cole is an alcoholic. I wanted to be rooting for the characters, for a romance I wanted to be desperate for them to get back together but I just wanted it to get to the end in all honesty.

This wasn’t the one for me. I like the premise of ‘what would you do if you could go back and make different choices’, but I wouldn’t want to do that myself.

Rated