The No-Show
Ratings40
Average rating3.7
15
Ratings40
Average rating3.7
Three women who seemingly have nothing in common find that they're involved with the same man in this smart new rom-com by Beth O'Leary, bestselling author of The Flatshare. Siobhan is a quick-tempered life coach with way too much on her plate. Miranda is a tree surgeon used to being treated as just one of the guys on the job. Jane is a soft-spoken volunteer for the local charity shop with zero sense of self-worth. These three women are strangers who have only one thing in common: they’ve all been stood up on the same day, the very worst day to be stood up—Valentine’s Day. And, unbeknownst to them, they’ve all been stood up by the same man. Once they've each forgiven him for standing them up, they are all in serious danger of falling in love with a man who may have not just one or two but three women on the go.... Is there more to him than meets the eye? Where was he on Valentine’s Day? And will they each untangle the truth before they all get their hearts broken?
Reviews with the most likes.
It's not often I read 2/3 of a book thinking I understand the story, and then realized (Plot Twist!) I don't! I didn't love the characters, but that changed in the last third of the book and I couldn't wait to find out how everything pieced together. Author gets 4 stars for their writing craft.
I have no idea how to rate this book. I've imagined what this book will be about way before I started reading this book. And I really wanted to read that book in my head.
The No-Show was different and wonderful. The book is told from the perspectives of three different women; Siobhan, Miranda, and Jane. At the beginning of the The No-Show, I was most interested in the stories and backgrounds of the three women. Even when I wasn't sure what to think about each woman's interactions with “No-Show” Joseph Carter, I was invested in finding out more about the female characters.
The way in which everything was connected was so different from what I was expecting. I was enthralled. The characters were well developed with depths that I was excited to uncover. I did not predict what was going on in this book, and it was so much better than what I would have guessed.
After reading Beth O'Leary's The Flatshare, I had been wanting to read another of her books. I couldn't decide between The Switch and The Road Trip. When The No-Show came out recently, I decided to go right for her newest release.
I also consumed this book entirely through audiobook, because I had a backlog of Audible credits and I saw that one of the narrators is Evanna Lynch, who played Luna Lovegood in the Harry Potter movies. They used a different narrator for each woman and it was really well done.
Spoiler
I was expecting the three women to run into each other and the man to be caught, or for there to be some mystery that they would solve surrounding his missing day. Maybe the man was a spy or had multiple personality disorder or something. That was nothing like what was actually in The No-Show.
I was ready for all of the characters to all come together at the New Years Eve party when it was revealed that they were all in different years!
The way all of the characters' stories connected was really amazing. At some point before the end, I realized that something terrible was probably going to happen to Siobhan. It wouldn't really make sense otherwise. That was pretty sad. But the way Joseph Carter and Jane's stories were intertwined so that they ended up together was pretty cool. They both had so much trauma, they were able to be each other's second chances.
The different years twist really reframed the whole first half of the book! I'm still going over things in my head and realizing how they fit together. The mysteries were explained in really satisfying ways that enriched the story rather than taking away from it.
This book is the opposite of Lost.
Enjoyable, but it seems to be categorized/marketed/etc. as a romance along the lines of [b:The Boyfriend Project 52211784 The Boyfriend Project (The Boyfriend Project, #1) Farrah Rochon https://i.gr-assets.com/images/S/compressed.photo.goodreads.com/books/1570712674l/52211784.SY75.jpg 73615834], with one guy dating three women at the same time and hijinks ensuing. I can't say a whole lot more here without spoiling, but that's not the case. The puzzle-box nature of the interlocking stories was really well-done, but this is not a romance according to the definition I usually use/see mentioned: central love story and HEA. The three POV characters make it kind of hard for any of the supposed love stories to be central, and while two of the three POV characters do end up with what could maybe be considered an HEA, I still didn't feel like either of those relationships were really all that developed. The plot was way more focused on the interlocking/multiple POVs and so especially Miranda's resolution felt pretty tacked on. Despite that, I did enjoy this! I really love O'Leary's writing - it's engaging and fun to read, and often funny. I would still recommend this, but just go in knowing that it's much more general fiction than it is romance.
