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Fiction. Literature. Romance. Humor (Fiction.) HTML:When Tilly's seemingly perfect life starts changing around her, she must decide which is the life she wants� the one she's carefully tended for decades or the one she never considered possible? Tilly Farmer is thirty-two years old and has the life she always dreamed of married to her high school sweetheart, working as a guidance counselor in her hometown and trying for a baby. Perfect. On the surface you might never know how tough things used to be. At seventeen, Tilly lost her mother to cancer, and while her father drowned his grief in alcohol, she was left to play parent to her two younger sisters rather than be a kid herself. Still Tilly never let tragedy overtake her belief that hard work and good cheer could solve any problem. Of course she�s also spent a lifetime plastering a smile on her face and putting everyone else�s problems ahead of her own. But that relentless happiness has served her well�her sisters are grown and content, her dad is ten years sober, and she�s helping her students achieve all their dreams while she and her husband, Tyler, start a family. A perfect life indeed. One sweltering afternoon at the local fair, everything changes when Tilly wanders into the fortune teller�s tent and is greeted by an old childhood friend, now a psychic. �I�m giving you the gift of clarity,� her friend says. �It�s what I always thought you needed.� Soon Tilly starts seeing things� her father relapsing, staggering out of a bar and Tyler uprooting their happy, stable life, a packed U-Haul in the driveway. Even more disturbing, these visions start coming true. Suddenly Tilly�s perfect life, so meticulously mapped out, seems to be crumbling around her. And she�s not sure what�s more frightening: that she�s begun to see the future or what the future holds.… (more)
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Or so you think, until Tilly meets up with an old grade school friend, Ashley, who changes her life for worse or for better. Ashley bestows the gift of Clarity to Tilly.
The novel is easy to read, surprising at times, and predictable at others. The author presents reoccurring themes that end up changing as the main character does. The book opens up to show a shallow, predictable, and even slightly annoying character. However, the author shows a more insightful knowledge of her character as well as human behavior.
A good read, although perhaps not something to be taken into lightly. This novel may just cause you to re-evaluate your own life. Do you know what makes you truly happy?
But then she goes into a fortune
Except it's not really a gift so much as a complete nightmare. She starts seeing things--her alcoholic father getting drunk at a bar; her husband packing up and moving--and the visions start happening.
It's an interesting premise--as her books tend to be--and while I preferred Time of My Life, I enjoyed this one, too. I don't know if I would want to know the future, especially if I couldn't do anything to change it.
Tilly is an endearing character. She's been a rock and a Pollyanna for much of her life and she is much younger emotionally than her years. This book is really a sort of coming of age for her despite the fact that she is in her thirties. It is a lesson in tapping into her emotions and really learning to feel and to accept. It's not a comfortable lesson for her by any stretch of the imagination and she wonders who she is becoming as her less pleasant feelings, long tamped down and ignored, roil to the surface. But this change and growth make her a delightfully well-rounded character. If she had stayed the perpetually upbeat woman who never really progressed beyond her high school persona, she would have been irritating as all get out and the reader wouldn't have had any sympathy as she had to face the world and life in all its messy, often times terrible, glory.
With a main character who has sort of lost herself along the way, refusing to see her husband's feelings of stagnation, being annoyed with her younger sister for not treading the path Tilly had mapped out for her, mothering her father, and generally being relentlessly cheerful in turning a blind eye, this will appeal to fans of chick lit without following the traditional chick lit plot arc. As it is, Tilly has discovered that the accusation she flung at her retreating husband, that he didn't know what happiness is, is becoming less true of herself as she faces the newly forged path that is her life. She is indeed learning about happiness and not mistaking the safe and unexamined status quo for this most precious of feelings. Even though the lesson Tilly learns sounds heavy, this is a good, fun, light, beachy read for the summer.
One afternoon during a school festival Tilly wanders into a booth to find her old middle school friend, Ashley, who is now a fortune teller. After a quick recap from Tilly as to how perfect her life has turned out since they were friends, Ashley tells her that she is going to give her the gift of clarity.
Now by clarity, Tilly never expected that she would start seeing future events. And these events are not what she expected nor does it seem can she do anything to change them. As her perfect world slowly starts to crumble she must find a way of understanding her deeper feelings and can't help but find herself questioning why the foundation to such a perfect life came undone so easily.
Wow! Allison Winn Scotch has yet again made me fall in love with another one of her books. Not only does she create a variety of likeable and relateable characters, but you find yourself caring for them and even holding your breath to see how the turn of events will play out. You not only care for Tilly, but for her sisters Luanne and Darcy, her best friend Susanna and even for her old friend Ashley not to mention some of the residents of the town of Westlake. Women of all ages will be able to relate to one aspect of this novel or another. Although it is considered to be chick-lit, I would not say it is a light read without depth. This will definitely appeal to readers who have questioned the "what if"... what if we had we chosen a different path in life. Tilly is faced with many tough questions regarding her life choices and you will find that you cannot help asking yourself some of those same questions - very thought-provoking.
All in all, I truly enjoyed this and really didn't want it to end. Highly recommended.
So as the novel begins, Tilly is “blind” in more ways than one. The fact that it took her two hundred pages to recognize that her husband was a poor spouse was aggravating. The way that she makes excuses for her alcoholic father was not helpful. And the way Tilly spent so much of the book telling me everything was perfect made me want to scream. She ignored the issues in her life for too long in the novel for me to truly love it. And it was this slow beginning that made her ultimate discovery-which came very quickly in the end-lose its punch.
The shining spots of this work came in the end. When Tilly finally finds clarity, she is inspirational. She relaxes and lets the other people in her life handle their own problems. She learns to let go, and that her students, her siblings, and her spouse are able to think without her constant guidance and cliched advice. Tilly almost won me back in these last wonderful fifty pages. She further reminded me of our similarities, when she realizes what she has given up for her family. “I abandoned it: for Darcy, for my family, for my father. I lost myself for them, which we all have to do every once in a while but probably shouldn’t do forever.” What mother, wife, teacher hasn’t sacrificed a lot for their family only to occasionally want it back?
Scotch shows she is a good writer in lines like the ones above, but it was too little, too late to win me back entirely. This is the first time that I have ever read her work, and I would like to read Time of My Life-her first novel. Allison’s blog, Ask Allison, is always witty and insightful, and although I never comment I always wish I would. The One that I Want is an interesting idea, but I hope that Scotch’s other works cuts to the chase a little faster, and that maybe the characters don’t have lives so close to mine!
Tilly Farmer has been given the gift of clarity. Her once perfect life as a high school guidance counselor married to her high school sweetheart is coming apart at the seams. The problems arise when Tilly is given tiny glimpses of these tears before they happen. Her picture-perfect life is tipped on its axis and suddenly the long buried and ignored flaws are starting to show. Her marriage starts crumbling, her issues with her father resurface and her once adequate life suddenly starts to lose its luster. Everything Tilly everbelieved in is being challenged and even her glimpses at the future create more questions than answers. Throughout this heartfelt, honest and poignant journey into the soul of one woman we learn that, “everyone needs to come unraveled every once in awhile, even the people who seemingly have it totally held together.”
Allison Winn Scotch has written a story of hope and survival in everyday life, an empowering novel with a likable and believable protagonist and a thoughtful journey. What Scotch does impeccably well is give her readers a great concept (what if you could see the future?) and expand on it with believable, authentic characters and graceful prose. Her books are always a treat and this one is bound to delight readers. You will finish this book feeling inspired and optimistic. A great read!
I also disliked the sentence structure (many, many, many commas, colons, semi-colons), flow of time (one paragraph it's morning, another evening, another 5 days later), and rapidly used profanity. I can tolerate curse words sparingly; it just naturally comes out in everyday conversation and in thought processes as well. However, Tilly would just go off on these furious rampages, and I just wanted to tell her to chill. Personally, I think an educated character like Tilly should have been able to express her emotions more rationally no matter how angry or outraged she might have been. Since I've only ranted thus far, I should say that the cover is awesome! What an amazing shot. Also, the writing was descriptive and vivid on the whole. For this reason, I'll try another Allison Winn Scotch novel another time.
But overall, I struggled with this one. I kept reading because the premise won me over and had me flipping pages. If you like chick-lit with a magical yet realistic twist, then try The One That I Want. I had lots of personal problems with it, but you all aren't me (whew!) so maybe your experiences will be different!
I will say that "The One That I Want" is well written and the characters are compelling. I enjoyed the physic elements in it as well.
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.
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.