The Man I Never Met by Elle Cook

ANNIKA SWANSBURY | CONTENT WRITER

In the hunt for something a little less academic to read after finishing a slew of essays and assignments, The Man I Never Met by Elle Cook slid gently into place. It is the perfect easy read for when you need an injection of warm, sweet romance to make the February chill a little more bearable.

This is a sappy, entirely predictable romance novel with just enough twists to keep a reader interested through the almost-400 pages. It is full of characters you could very easily find in a Richard Curtis movie: the sassy and gorgeous best friend, the quirky, older neighbour, and the underwhelming love interest destined to fail before the final emotional climax.

Cook’s main couple are charming and ooze just the kind of palpable chemistry needed of a leading lady and her perfect man. You spend the novel waiting for and willing the inevitable moment they reunite, something that comes pages before the end and leaves you wondering what their life becomes after you close the book.

Cook’s protagonist, Hannah starts the novel stuck in the grey monotonous carousel of London corporate life, with a dead-end job in marketing, little to no love life, nothing out of the ordinary until a strange unknown number calls her.

Picking up and answering is the moment her life changes, as on the other end is Davey, an American who simply dialled the wrong number in pursuit of a job interview. Unknowingly, this sets them both on a path they could never have imagined. Fate brings them tantalisingly close after a month of texting, calling, and video chats, only to force them apart for the main chunk of the story. It is a heart-breaking separation but happens so early in the book you cannot help but assume you will read through pages of longing before eventually reaching the reconciliation prompted again by fate. When Hannah mentions her love of James Ivory’s film adaptation of the novel A Room with a View, and especially the climactic scene in which Helena Bonham Carter finds herself in a Tuscan poppy field, the novel practically writes its own ending. Through a series of well-timed events that lead to Hannah attending a wedding in the same town that Davey is working in the kitchen of an Italian restaurant, we finally get our picture-perfect happy ending.

The Man I Never Met is a book to break up the grey skies with chapters set in Thailand, full of cocktails, golden temples, street food, and idealised visions of a London Christmas time. Cook cycles through a two-year period showing us a perfect snowy December, a brisk springtime on the Kent coast, the deep, warm summertime of Tuscany, and humid heat of Bangkok. In just under 400 pages, you get a simple escape from reality and are carried to a world where handsome strangers fall in love with you over the phone and everything works out perfectly in the end, wrapped up neatly like all good cheesy romances should be.