The One Hardcover – February 20, 2018

I got very little done for 2 days and didn't get much sleep for 2 nights...it was THAT hard to put down! Quite a page-turner.For those who say it was confusing...good heavens, there were only 5 main characters to keep up with! Each timeline was contiguous...with alternating chapters. I cheated a couple of times and skipped to the next chapter featuring that character, because I couldn't stand the suspense. But don't do that towards the end because the timelines do converge at that point.Good characterization, believable premise, excellent style of writing, and a steady pace...overall, very well-written!I have only 2 complaints:1. Very poorly edited. There were a number of places where a small word was just missing, or the wrong form of a word was used... stuff like that...in addition to grammatical errors which most people won't notice.. I hope the author gets a better editor for the next edition. Not bad enough to get in the way of enjoying the story...just some minor annoyances that made the reading a bit choppy in places.2. The endings of a couple of the timelines were a bit over the top, like he throwing in everything but the kitchen sink! It was a bit much and unnecessary. (But it didn't bother me enough to dock any stars.) The 2 main timelines that I was the most interested in had very satisfying endings.3. MINOR SPOILER ALERT! (Not really...I will try to just hint)Authors choosing to write about psychopaths should get better educated about the fact that true psychopaths have a brain disorder and canNOT change...they do NOT have a conscience and cannot love anyone, because they aren't physically capable of true emotions, and No amount of love will cure them. To suggest otherwise may encourage victims of psychopaths to tolerate abuse much longer, instead of escaping.4. MAJOR SPOILER ALERT! ---------------------------------------------------------------------NO WAY would the cop have been that stupid. Well the premise is that love is blind, right? and because they believed in the Match so thoroughly that they lost their ability to think rationally...I get it. But still, that part wasn't plausible.-------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------All of these nits are minor, when compared to the overall success of the book. I enjoyed it and will definitely check out other books by this author.

Somewhat entertaining, but mostly silly. An original, intriguing idea, that I was excited to sink my teeth into but that was pretty much where my excitement ended. A bore to read, with one-dimensional characters, none of who I gave a hoot about. I ended up skimming most of the chapters, and I guarantee I didn’t miss anything, as most of the twists, and so-called cliff-hanger chapter endings, I saw coming a mile away. There was one twist around the 80% mark that was a good one, but little consequences came of it by the end of the book. And it wasn’t psychological disturbing, or suspenseful in any way – definitely a contemporary romance/domestic drama. Very disappointing! I’m just glad it was cheap to buy. Such a shame as I was really looking forward to this one having recently read, and enjoyed, ‘The Good Samaritan’.

Very shallow, one-dimensional characters. An intriguing idea, but poorly realized. I made it half-way through and started skimming but couldn't even skim my way to the end. It wasn't really science fiction so much as a crime novel. It gives me no pleasure to write a bad review, but i just didn't like this book.

I liked this book. I was recommended it from the Dear Sugars podcast. I thought the idea behind it was fascinating. In some respects, I had always wondered if there was something like the gene discovered in the book existed.So this spurred me into reading the book. I just found a lot of it kind of... Stereotypical, I guess. Also, Spoilers from here on.Like when Jade went to see Kevin I felt like I had already guessed what would happen-- and then, surprise, I was right. What I found worse was, Jade chose to stay with the person who lied to her despite her character being opposite to that. I just don't like love conquers all as a resolution-- it seems forced and untrue and extremely dangerous. The stories where love is hard and difficult and forgiveness is hard feel more fulfilling to me. All Jade's story and some of Mandy's (I think that was her name) story were like this. In Alex and Nick's story, I was much more satisfied with the outcome because they struggled, but like even still I thought the idea of two until then straight men becoming gay in like three chapters was silly.The focus on more than one character is inevitably the downfall of this book. Some ideas need more than a brief glance, others don't need as much insight as they seemed to get in a chapter.There's a serial killer that gets this buildup that's huge and yet, his death is so blasé and his story is generic. He's sort of like Dexter, except he falls in love. And this book is about love, so that's fine, but it kind of felt like in one chapter, he found his Match amusing and then suddenly he loved her. I was surprised by the turnaround. I don't find him very different from other psychopathic serial killers in novels, so... I don't really know why he rubbed me so wrong. It needed more to be deeply investigated, but I don't even know if this would have been interesting.I thought most if the other stories were interesting, with Ellie's being the outlier. Her story was basically a fairy tale until this the guy revealed himself and I was totally enraptured by that. I really didn't like that it ended the way it did, but, it is what it is. I would have enjoyed learning more about her, though.There were plenty of characters who were just flat out unlikable, but not in a good villain way. I mean characters who existed solely as an awful human being in an unrealistic way. I thought, for instance, Richard's mother and sister we're flat out insane, but worse, that his Match went to his "funeral" and never asked a single question to his friends about who he was. She just accepted his mother and sister's opinions as facts. What person does that? Tim was similar but at least he made up a life and Ellie looked into it and it checked out.All in all, I don't hate this book but I don't love it, and it's good, but it's not eye opening it amazing. It's a book I'd probably never revisit but I could recommend it to someone. It's alright.

The characters were well developed as in all Marrs books, as was the writing style and engrossing plotlines. My problem w/the book was there were too many characters which gets a bit confusing & hard to follow. That and my dislike of several characters made it irritating at times. Not as good as his last 3 books. So it was disappointing in those aspects. Maybe my expectations were too high compared to his prior books. I neither recommend nor not reccomend this book, another reader may find it very entertaining and suspenseful. This is only my personal opinion.

I gave up on this book at chapter 22 owing not only to the vile, violent scene but also the mediocrity of the writing. It started off quite promising and together with the excellent reviews I thought it would be a book worth reading. I was wrong. So far fetched. Characters unbelievable and very short chapters jumping from one character to another meant there wasn't any real depth for me. Sexual references and scenes for me were amateurish and could be mistaken for having been written by an adolescent! I rarely abandon a book so early on but I'd really had enough of this.

Just imagine if you could take a simple DNA test and possibly be matched with your soul mate with a 99.99% accuracy. It is really easy to imagine something like this happening in the near future. But it throws up so many questions. What if you were married and not to your soul mate? What if you sent in your swab and don’t get matched because your soul mate hasn’t yet registered? What if you believe you are heterosexual and get matched with someone of the same sex? Is this a case of beware what you wish for?The book follows five couples who are matched, but this is definitely not a love story. And one of the couples is a serial killer and a policewoman! At first I found it hard to get my head round all the different characters but once I did I thought it was brilliantly original. Just when you thought you knew where each of the stories was going John Marrs dropped a bombshell at the end of the chapter. And the twists never stopped.I read recently that this book is being made into a Netflix series and I think it will transfer well to the small screen.Well done Mr Marrs. You are fast becoming one of my favourite authors!

Just don't bother. It's so far fetched and poorly written that it's ridiculous. Hated it.

Truly awful yet bizarrely readable. 1 Star.

It's difficult to categorize this book. Is it sci-fi? Romance? Adventure thriller? Psychological thriller? But this book is all of them. And more.The author uses the names of the several characters in the story as chapter titles. Making it easy to follow the development of each of the standalone story. All the stories follow the same theme but each develops in its own fate. It is a brilliant plotting. I've never seen a book written this way. It is like watching an Oscar-worthy editing work in a movie. At the appropriate places, the film is cut to another scene, yet the flow is perfect.Each character, although they are not related anyhow, seems to create an emotional attachment in me. I begin to know them, hear them and feel them. Even though there are several characters and a few stories happening throughout the novel, I could follow them throughout.The twists are brilliant. I never see them coming. This novel is so well thought of, I want to give the author a standing ovation.Pick up this book, and believe me, it will be hard, very hard, to put it down until you've read the last page. Yes, it is that good!