Have you ever sometimes felt that you just are never the One? That you’re not picked, that things don’t go right for you? That you’re the one that is the one before the One? Then you’ll definitely empathize with how Ros Demir feels. Keep reading this book review of Ros Demir Is Not the One for my full thoughts.
Summary
Ros will do whatever it takes to get the guy. At least… she thinks she will.
Sixteen-year-old Ros is a go-getter. When she wants something, she makes sure she gets it.
But a lingering rumor (and maybe some ambivalence about her half-Turkish heritage) has kept Ros from achieving the kind of reputation she deserves. So, after years of plotting her big comeback, she just needs one thing: a hot, adoring guy on her arm at junior year homecoming. And when she meets charming new classmate Aydın at the Pine Bay resort over the summer, she thinks she’s found The One.
It doesn’t work, though. And things get messy when Ros’s plan ends up hurting the only friend she has left… poor, sweet, forgiving Eleanor. This has happened before—things tend to get messy with Ros around—and it’s getting harder for her to ignore the pattern of hurt feelings. Plus, it seems like Ros and Aydın aren’t really meant to be. What kind of a plan results in everyone ending up unhappy? Not a very good one.
Review
Ros Demir Is Not the One is a story about friendship. It’s a story about love. It’s also a story about trying to figure out what kind of person we want to be. We can too often be absorbed by trying to be the one. The One who has the partner, who wins, who has it all. We try to be the one for whom the light always shines. But sometimes we have to realize that to always be the One requires us often to see ourselves statically. To try to make things work that we should release. This is a story for the ones who have always felt second best and betrayed. It’s also a story for anyone who wants what’s real, not just what looks best.
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So often for teenangers, we are trying, and told, to set ourselves up for success. To try to set ourselves up for popularity. I know that feeling. I know that pressure to have all the ducks in a row, to be on the path. But I also know the pressure to want to have the spotlight, the best angle, to have everyone think that we have it all together. For Ros, she’s trying to set herself up for the perfect school year. And in trying to do so, realizes that when you’re trying to build a house of cards, just one breeze blows it all away.
Ros Demir Is Not the One is a story about friends. About how self absorbed we can be and the friends that dissolve. We can think we are being a good friend, that we are saying sorry, and be so far from the mark. Friends we hurt by accident, mistakes we make, and wounds we cause. At the same time, it’s also about identity. She’s felt that her dad’s Turkish identity has made her feel like an Outsider to her classmates. In Ros Demir Is Not the One, Ros also navigates what this identity could mean for her. How she can change her own opinions of herself. This is a tender debut that I enjoyed as we see Ros struggling and coming into her own.
Find Ros Demir Is Not the One on Goodreads, Storygraph, Amazon, Bookshop.org, & Blackwells.