After almost a week, I’m finally updating. In case you haven't noticed, my previous post still related my Beautiful Sunday series. I almost thought that it would take me another Sunday to upload another post. Being busy is a lame excuse. I know. But the truth is, I became so lousy and lazy this week. I wasn’t able to properly handle my time. Hence, this blog became one of my careless casualties.  


Today is my favorite day of the week. It’s a payday Friday and instead of going to the mall, I decided to stay home. Hooray! It was raining the entire day and I felt that it would also be best if I head home to prevent getting stuck in traffic and misery. I have other finances to prioritize so my shopaholic hormones thankfully subsided. I chose finishing my current read in bed, while enjoying the rare cold temperature in the city.

I was about to start my next read when I felt the need to check my blog. I noticed from my reading list that Ricki is hosting the Literary Friday.I felt motivated to get out of my comfy bed and here I am writing my first review for Emily Giffin.

Love the One You’re With related the story of Ellen and her“perfect” life. She has a promising career in her field of interest, financially stable and loving husband, and very caring in-laws. Ellen is blessed with the life every woman would pray for.  But as they say, life and happiness meant more than what we perceived as perfect. 

It used to be Leo and Ellen. Ellen was so in loved with Leo that she could almost see the future ahead of them. Unfortunately, Leo never shared Ellen’s dreams. As mentioned in the book, Leo doesn’t believe in forever. Ellen felt devastated and this served as one of the triggers of their break-up. Ellen invested more in their relationship which in effect left her more devastated and pathetic. In the course of Ellen’s recovery, she met her husband Andy.

Andy proves to be the perfect partner for Ellen. He was the brother of her best friend, Margot. Life seemed to be perfect for Ellen not until Leo returns. Leo offered a job opportunity which Ellen cannot refuse. As much as Ellen wanted to remain faithful with Andy, she wanted the opportunity for her career. This is where the succeeding events and conflicts in the novel unfolded. Ellen later fell in the trap of finding answers to issues that remained unsettled with Leo. In addition to this, Ellen found herself in the brink of threatening to lose her marriage.

The book maybe classified as a shallow chick lit which as most people would claim, circulated to a woman's quest for that one great love or mending a broken heart. Such however is not the case for this book.Giffin provided real life depictions of hidden conflicts and issues of a married life. One of which is how the wife/husband handles relationships with in-laws.  No matter how much you love and respect your in-laws, there would always be conflicts that will arise. In the Philippine setting, this is equivalent to saying that when you choose to marry,you should also open your mind and heart to the idea that you are also marrying your other half’s family.

As much as I love and learn some lessons from the story, I admit feeling a degree of boredom and agitation in some chapters. This particularly emerged on those instances when Ellen seemed to over-analyze things. If Ellen sought my opinion, I would have told her that most of the time; the best solution is always the simplest. Excessive analyses leads to self paralysis. Haha Another confession to make, I hated Ellen when she allowed herself to drift in Leo’s deceiving arms. For one thing, I never liked women who lead the spark of selfish unfaithfulness. Fine, I got carried away :D

Overall, I would recommend Love the One You’reWith as a great read. If I will specifically rate it, I’ll give it 3.5 out of 5 stars. It’s an endearing story of career, love, friendship and married life. The lessons presented in the novel is a must read for every woman. Just to give you some of the lessons I've been emphasizing, here are some of the striking words left by Ellen

A son is a son, 'til he gets a wife, but a daughter is a daughter all her life 
(This quote melted my heart because Ellen lost her mother before she got married. And for any daughter, I would like to believe that those those special days in her life will never be the same again without a mom.)

Sometimes there are no happy endings. No matter what, I'll be losing something, someone.
(When I'm handling classes in Economics, I never fail to present to my students the concept of Opportunity Cost. I always tell them that our economy and even our life itself is full of choices to make. In the process of choosing, we gain something and lose something.)

Love, not as a surge of passion, but as a choice to commit to something, someone, no matter what obstacles or temptations stand in the way. And maybe making that choice, again and again, day in and day out, year after year, says more about love than never having a choice to make at all.” 

Love is the sum of our choices, the strength or our commitments, the ties that bind us together.

 Linking this post to Ricki's Literary Friday