Book Review: The One by John Marrs (2016)

I didn’t know much about The One by John Marrs beyond its initial premise. I knew it was a modern sci-fi book and so it landed on my list of reads. At any rate, another reviewer delivered the synopsis this way: “A company announces that they have found the gene that pairs each of us with our soulmate. In a desperate search for true love, millions of people around the world take the DNA test…but when several individuals receive notification that they’ve found their match, everything begins to fall apart.” That’s an apt description of the premise and is best left at that, though readers should be aware that the DNA-matching plot device is nothing more than that and is the sole element of sci-fi in the novel.

While I wasn’t a fan of the vignette-style of delivery (in which the various tales are loosely connected at best) and The One is not a particularly well-written book, I found myself enjoying the various twists and turns even if they weren’t foreshadowed while predictable half the time anyway. Certainly, there were times I did not see a twist coming, but the book does become more and more predictable as it enters its climax and tailors an ending that makes sense but isn’t particularly compelling. 

Upon reading other reviews it seems the main complaint lodged against this book is that the characters aren’t compelling. I would say that except for the characters of Ellie and Christopher (one of whom is a serial killer and of whom the whole book could have been about), the characters are normal people we’re not given a reason to root for aside from the fact that any one of them could be us in their situation. That seems to be a turn-off for many readers though I would assume the trainwrecks that ensue in the character’s lives would keep most readers invested in the book. 

The One is not going to be a book anyone remembers far into the future but should be for one simple reason – what it has to say about the merger and impact of advanced technology on our lives. As a philosopher myself, the book could’ve focused on fewer characters and explored this topic more in-depth which I think would have been much more engaging. 

Not terrible and good enough to finish. 

Final score: a solid 6.5/10