Well, hello there little book! You are extremely unexpected. I didn’t know I’ll be in an emotional rollercoaster ride with this one. I have read one other book by Paige Toon but it was enough to make me read more. After The One We Fell in Love with, I’m thinking about adding Paige Toon in my list of auto-buy authors.
I didn’t realize when I read the premise of this novel about three girls falling for the same guy, Angus or Gus, that the girls were identical triplets. I was completely taken aback after reading just the first two pages. It brought the concept to a whole new, completely twisted and very emotional level.
And it helps that Ms. Toon writes so well. She makes the three girls so distinct from one another, you wouldn’t have any trouble distinguishing which one is which. In fact, I made a distinguishing method myself and decided to match them with the three female Friends characters.
Phoebe is like the Rachel of the three. Always perfect, affable, charming, and gets what she wants. Rose is Monica because she is always organized, a bit obsessed about cleanliness, and always generous. As the story puts it, she’s always the giver, not the taker. And Eliza is like Phoebe, who seems just to go with the flow, without any serious professional direction. In fact she even busks like Phoebe. She seems like a toughie on the outside but like Angus puts it, it seems like she’s the one needing protection the most.
The story brilliantly captured what it’s like to live as a triplet, all the pros and the cons. It was a really wonderful experience reading the mind of each girl and it’s so easy to empathize with each of them although my personal favorite is Eliza.
What I least expected was the twist to the plot. I was like Woah! It was really so clever, so heartbreaking, so surprising and yet seems necessary to the plot of the story. The story ended so well, I could cry a tear or two.
