The First Time We Met
The First Time We Met
By Jo Lovett
Full of heart, hope and love, this is a perfect read to keep you warm this winter.
Book Review, no spoilers I swear!!!
Published: Bookouture 10th Nov 2020 Pre-order now.
Welcome back fellow bookish folk, today I have the absolute pleasure of sharing with you my thoughts of Jo Lovett's The First Time We Met which is a perfect winter read that will get you in the feels. I can happily say that I fell in love with Sam and Izzy's story and was captured from the first chapter.
I would firstly like to say thank you to Bookouture and Netgalley for sending me the arc and therefore all my views are my own and unbiased. Now before I continue how about I tell you what this book is actually about.
The Blurb:
What if you met The One on his wedding day?
Izzy doesn’t believe in love at first sight, but when Sam walks into the cafe where she works one winter’s morning, she knows without a doubt that he’s The One. Too bad Sam’s getting married. Today.
Nearly a year later, Izzy still can’t stop thinking about Sam, the one that got away, but she knows it’s time to move on: he’s a married man and probably wouldn’t recognise her if he passed her on the street.
But Sam has never forgotten Izzy, the funny, gorgeous woman who asked him out on his wedding day. If the timing had only been better, he knows they could have had something wonderful.
When Izzy and Sam’s paths finally cross again, everything has changed. But with the Atlantic Ocean and decades of baggage between them, they are about to find out whether some obstacles are too big for even true love to overcome.
An unforgettable love story about what happens when the stars finally align. Fans of One Day in December, The Day We Met and Jojo Moyes will fall head over heels for The First Time We Met.
Thoughts:
Well. Where do I begin? How about... I really really enjoyed this book ever so much! I'm fell in love with Josie Silver's One Day In December and felt like The First Time We Met is an excellent contender.
Right, so where was I? Oh yea, Sam and Izzy.
I loved Izzy's character, I felt like she was one of my best friends, her caring personality, her wit and selflessness was something that I really loved. When we first meet Izzy she is a naive woman in her early twenties whose dreams are big, but when she asks Sam out on his wedding day we see Izzy change. Izzy becomes someone who wants to be there for others rather than herself, she does what she thinks is right rather than what feels right for her. A great quality for sure and is something that I thing we can all identify with but at the same time, I was just waiting for someone to snap her out of it, for her to actually put herself first.
What I liked about Lovett's writing is that she jumps a lot of years ahead instead of doing year by year. A plus to this is that Sam and Izzy's character's development isn't slow paced but instead is summarised, a downside to this is that we don't see a gradual change of Sam and Izzy. However, personally I liked how the book was paced as when Sam and Izzy meet again throughout the years its just like how old friends would catch up after time apart.
Sam is a dreamboat in this book and its evident that him and Izzy have unfinished business since there first encounter. But unlike Izzy, Sam has't got his priorities right and with how his life has changed, I won't tell you how its changed because that would be a spoiler but I will say that at times I really wanted to shout at Sam. I wanted t tell him how much of an idiot he was being, but then again, the way Sam is written felt so real. Having flaws written in both Izzy and Sam's character's felt right, they're humans after all and we tend to have flaws. Because of there flaws, it made me love and hate them at times, which is a good thing I think, especially with a love story like this.
Throughout this book I laughed, cried, shouted, swore, laughed some more, swore some more, laughed, cried, and fell in love.
Although many may find it hard to believe that the one encounter Izzy and Sam have would effect there lives so much as it did I found it magical and believable. I mean if there is one thing that I'll be taking away from this book it is that everything happens for a reason and although life, love and loss gets in the way it eventually all works out in the end.
If you love Josie Silver, Jojo Moyes and Emma Cooper I definitely recommend that you check this book out for yourselves, its a warm, loving read that will make your heart ache from all the feels.
Rating: 3.5* out of 5. A great read that I will no doubt go back to.
After all tomorrow is another day spent reading,
Till next time,
Phoebe x
You can pre-order The First Time We Met now from Amazon but if you are able to buy from your local bookstore then please make sure you do.