King Arthur Movie Tristan

title: The One That I Want

author: Allison Winn Scotch


genre: fiction


pages: 270


published: 2010/ARC


first line: Imagine, if you can, that you are sixteen again.

rated: 3 out of 5

This is my life. This is happiness. The two are one and the same. This, since I was sixteen and my mother died, is what I did, how I functioned, how I constructed everything around me; as sure as I breathed, I was happy. This is the life that I want, the one that I want. How is it that my husband doesn't know that?

In The One That I Want , Tilly Farmer is a married 32 year old guidance counselor, working for the same high school she graduated from. She is married to Tyler, her high school sweetheart, and the two are now trying to have a baby. They both live in the town they grew up in.
One afternoon Tilly goes to the town carnival and decides to see the fortune teller, who happens to be one of her old classmates. The fortune teller gives Tilly the 'gift of clarity' and sends her on her way.




Tilly's life is far from perfect. Her mother died to cancer when she was 16, leaving her 2 sisters, her father and herself heartbroken. Tilly managed to cope, but her father succumbed to alcoholism and her younger sister still resents him for it.
Now that Tilly has seen the fortune teller, she suddenly has strange episodes where she has visions of the future. When she 'sees' her father getting into his car drunk, then receives the phone call from the police station telling her he is being held for DWI, she begins to wonder how powerful this 'gift of clarity' really is.



Before she knows it, Tilly begins to have other visions of the future, including one where she sees her husband packing his belongings and leaving town. Tilly begins to realize that things aren't what she thought they once were.







I both liked and disliked The One That I Want . The storyline was interesting and I enjoyed the magical realism aspect of it, but for some reason I just could not connect with Tilly's character. She wasn't annoying or anything, I just didn't feel any type of connection to her.


I hate to sound nitpicky, but one thing that bothered me was the language in the story, at times it felt uncalled for and distracting. Don't get me wrong, I'm the first one to drop the 'F' bomb in conversation, but in this story it just distracted me a bit. It felt like it was overdone in some of the conversations. I know Tilly was mad with the situation, but I'd rather have seen her less on the defense.

Another thing I didn't like were some of the metaphors the author uses.

"But that's just it," he answers, and two real tears roll down from each eye, like sperm swimming free.

Then again, some of the passages were great:

There is the before. And then there is the after. Happiness is what you choose, what you follow, not what follows you.

Like I said, the storyline was interesting. I did enjoy the friendship Tilly has with her best friend Susanna. I liked how the two support each other through thick and thin. There's a scene where Tilly and a few of the girls get together for Susanna's birthday. They have dinner and drink wine and just vent, that felt realistic and I always enjoy female friendships in stories.


There is a plot twist and the end that I thought was good also. All in all, this was an okay read for me. I do recommend it, others might love it. Though I didn't particularly love this book, I would definitely read Allison Winn Scotch again.











special thanks to Crystal over @ Booksparks for making this possible.