Book Review: S.I.N.G.L.E. by Lindsay Marie Miller

This is rather appalling, but I read SINGLE more than a year and a half ago (eek!) and I’m just getting to reviewing it now (remember my list?). I was pregnant with my youngest, who is now 17 months old, and my husband was away on a trip. I always have trouble sleeping when he’s away so I read this book in one or two nights late into the night, and I really enjoyed it (despite the cover, which I hadn’t seen, and usually is not the kind of book I tend to pick up).

Basically, Jessie is a single college senior who makes a pact with her roommate not to date for the rest of the semester and then BAM! meets the love of her life the next day. The rest of the story is sort of a typical back-and-forth, will they-won’t they get together kind of love story and not what I usually read. I know, ringing endorsement here, right?

The thing is, it’s not the story in and of itself that won me over with this book, but rather the depth of the characters. I had reviewed another of Lindsay Marie Miller’s books, Jungle Eyes, and it left me sort of ambivalent. This was totally different – reading SINGLE made me want to read more of what Lindsay writes. The depth and complexity of her writing greatly increased and I thought the characters were perfect: both Jessie and Graham are truly college students. Now, I met my husband freshman of year of college and we married right after graduation (we were engaged by the time Jessie and Graham meet!) so I’m not knocking college students and their love lives 🙂 But Jessie and Graham and the unique challenges they face due to their state in life were perfectly written. I could identify with Jessie (when thinking back to my younger self), and I think Lindsay is almost completely on the mark in her attempt to write Graham as the “ideal” boyfriend/partner (as she states in her introduction).

I do remember thinking that Lindsay’s introduction had more feeling than the book itself, but that the story as a whole showed a great improvement in her writing and made me want to read more of her work. I appreciated that the sex scenes (there’s A LOT of sex) were not explicit, which I think was also appropriate for the story.

I also remember thinking that a high-school-aged me would have pined after Graham as “the” perfect boyfriend, but that reading the book I felt no such yearning but rather a certainty that I have my perfect partner: I married him almost twelve years ago.

Four stars!

*Thanks to author Lindsay Marie Miller for providing a free copy of the book in exchange for an honest (and very belated) review!