Nya Reads

Nya

I’m an avid reader, a hobbyist writer, a professional designer, and I blog for fun!

I read a little bit of everything, from mystery/thriller to romance, but my true passion is being immersed in fantasy and magical worlds!

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“The Man I Never Met” by Elle Cook is my new favorite romance

Heartwarming, tragic, and beautiful. Not light, at all.


Disclaimer: I’ve received an advanced reader copy via NetGalley, this doesn’t influence my opinion or review. Thank you to the author and the publisher for providing me with a reader copy in exchange for an honest review.


Personal Experience:

Quote: 

“Pipe dreams and big plans with a man I’ve never met are perhaps a tad silly, but I think about it all the same.”

Who should read it? Anyone who’s ready for a not-light-at-all love story

Would I recommend it? Yes! 100% yes!

Possible Triggers (source): Cancer; Depression; Hospitalization; Terminal illness.

Tropes:


** What is this book about? You can check below first **

Even though I was expecting a completely different mood from this book, I could have never imagined I’d love it as much as I did! The main reason I picked it was because I knew it’d be relatable since I was in a not-quite-but-similar situation when my now-husband and I were forced to be in a long-distance relationship due to the pandemic restrictions. Unlike Hannah, I didn’t have as many supportive friends. In fact, pretty much everyone thought I was a lunatic for waiting for someone on the opposite side of the world.

I think this is why this book is so special too. Just because you are in a situation where you have to be apart from your loved one, it doesn’t mean your relationship is any less “real”. It’s easy to mistake the convenience of what (or who) is next to us with love or the potential of something that is right for us. However, sometimes, the best things and the most beautiful love stories don’t come easy.

Of course, this book is so much more than a virtual relationship between two people, and that’s not what the whole book is about. That’s as much as I can tell you to avoid spoilers.

Here are some things I LOVED about the book:

🧡 The depth of the relationship

Even when Hannah tries to dismiss her feelings or fears the judgment of others, it’s clear that she knows in her heart how she feels about someone who, technically, she “never met”. Perhaps if this happened to your best friend, you’d think they were nuts. But the fact that most of the book is told from Hannah’s perspective, really helps you understand why she feels the way she does. Every day in some long-distance relationship communities, you read about people frustrated at how their family and friends don’t value their relationship or can’t understand them. I wish I could recommend them this book!

🧡 The characters

I can’t actually remember the last time I liked most of the characters in a book (and disliked the ones we’re supposed to dislike). I like them so much that I get upset when others treat them unfairly — leave Joan alone! It just has that feel-good vibe that complements everything else, no matter how rough things get.

There’s one thing I didn’t love:

🌧️ Late POV shift

I mean, yes, it was interesting to find what was in the other person’s head, but it came way too late and kind of ruined some of the suspense for me. Some things are better left to wonder.

Overall The Man I Never Met was a beautiful romantic story that I couldn’t get enough of!

The Man I Never Met
by Elle Cook
Publication date: November 2022
Genre: Women’s Fiction, Contemporary Fiction

Is it possible to love someone you’ve never met? A young woman finds out in this sweeping will-they-or-won’t-they love story that begins with a chance wrong number dial. . . .

When Hannah picks up a call from an unknown number, she doesn’t imagine it will change her life. After all, it’s just an easygoing American named Davey who misdialed her while calling into a job interview. And when Hannah jokingly wishes him luck after clearing up the confusion, she never actually expects to hear from him again.

Then she gets a text saying he got the job and he’ll be moving to London, and she can’t help but smile. As they continue to message and their texts become phone calls that become video calls, their friendship becomes a relationship that they can’t wait to start in earnest as soon as Davey lands in London in a month’s time.

But when Hannah goes to the airport to meet him, she finds herself standing alone in the terminal, Davey nowhere to be found. Then comes another life-changing phone call–Davey won’t be able to move to London anytime soon, if ever. And it’s for a reason neither of them could ever have anticipated. With their future so uncertain, they don’t know what else to do but try to move on from each other, even if nothing feels right anymore.

Even as months go by and their love seems lost forever, neither is ever far from the other’s thoughts. Will fate intervene one last time to finally bring them together, or will Davey always be the man that Hannah never met?

 

the man i never met elle cook

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