How far would you go to find The One?

A simple DNA test is all it takes. Just a quick mouth swab and soon you’ll be matched with your perfect partner the one you are genetically made for.

That’s the promise made by Match Your DNA. A decade ago, the company announced that they had found the gene that pairs each of us with our soul mate. Since then, millions of people around the world have been matched. But the discovery has its downsides: test results have led to the breakup of countless relationships and upended the traditional ideas of dating, romance and love.

Now five very different people have received the notification that they’ve been “Matched.” They’re each about to meet their one true love. But “happily ever after” isn’t guaranteed for everyone. Because even soul mates have secrets. And some are more shocking than others…

A word-of-mouth hit in the United Kingdom, The One is a fascinating novel that shows how even the simplest discoveries can have complicated consequences.

I read this book for my local library's book club! It was my first time attending and I had a really good time. We sat at a long table, so it was a little tricky to talk, but I sat next to a handful of other new people, and we were able to chat, whisper, and enjoy each other's company. I'll go into some of their insights at the end of this post!

This won me over because of how digestible it is. Each chapter is only 2-5 pages, and they ended on a cliffhanger sentence that made me want to keep reading. Each chapter is a different character, so once I had a favorite character, I wanted to skip chapters to reach my favorite character, but they were ALL so interesting. I'm pretty good at predicting thriller endings, but this one took so many turns I genuinely didn't know which direction any of their stories were going or how they were going to end.

I think the most predictable storyline for me was Mandy. Mandy's match is pronounced deceased, and she attends his wake where she is approached by his sister and welcomed into their family. This happens so early on that you know the family is up to something weird. We have another character whose partner is also preparing to pass away from cancer, so the probability of having two deceased matches in the same book is low. That was the tip off to me that Mandy's partner wasn't actually dead, but he was in a coma.

There wasn't one character I was more invested in than the other. Whenever I thought there was one, the thought switched to the next character I was reading, and I was anxious to see where their story was going. Maybe the least interesting to me was Jade. She travels to Australia from the UK to meet her partner and he's the one who passes away from cancer. But, he has a brother so...

For the most part, the book club favorite character was Christopher: a serial killer who matches with a cop. Christopher was an interesting character to me because he is determined to kill thirty people, but he starts to feel guilty because he's starting to fall in love. I didn't love Christopher's ending, but hearing his internal monologue throughout was one of my favorite bits of the book.

Since I'm talking about characters, there's Ellie who is the CEO of the match company. She discovered the gene that helps find your match and I don't know if I would have guessed the ballpark of her ending had I not watched Bugonia before reading this. Her match compromises the premise of the novel in an interesting way which opened up the book club question do you think anybody had an actual match? This brought up placebos: are you actually in love with someone or do you only have these feelings because you're supposed to because they're your match?

The last character I didn't mention yet had some of the most interesting plot points and, if I had to pick a favorite, he might be it and his name is Nick. He's dating Sally, who pressures him to take the DNA test before they get married, and his match is a man named Alex. Nick goes to meet Alex and they share a look where they realize they could actually be queer and be each other's matches. Nick chooses to pursue Alex when Sally tells him she is pregnant. He goes back to Sally, she passes away in childbirth, and you find out the baby isn't Nick's! This plot just kept twisting in different ways and I forgot how much I enjoyed it until it was re-hashed at book club.

If you've made it this far, you've seen some spoilers but it's still so worth a read. I'd like to check out some other titles by John Marrs (he has another similar title called The Marriage Act with a similar Black Mirror-esque atmosphere.) Next month's library book club read is by Jodi Picoult so I'll see y'all for that one! Hopefully my friend shows up. :)