The One

De: Julia Argy

Narrado por: Phoebe Strole, Suehyla El-Attar Young

A razor-sharp and seductively hypnotic debut novel about the very fantasy of falling in love.

Emily didn’t join the cast of The One for fame or for a relationship. She simply didn’t have anything better to do. Newly fired from her dead-end job, it doesn’t take much convincing when she’s recruited as a last-minute contestant for the popular reality dating show. Emily has been performing her entire life—for her family and friends, former boyfriends, and coworkers. How different could it be playing herself in front of cameras?

But the moment Emily arrives, it becomes clear she’s been tapped to win it all. Emily’s producer Miranda sees her as the golden ticket: generically pretty, affable, and easily molded—all the qualities of a future Wife. Emily herself is less certain. It’s easy enough to fall in love under romantic lighting and perfectly crafted dates, but it’s harder to remember what’s real and what’s designed. And as Emily’s fascination with another contestant grows, both Emily and Miranda are forced to decide what it is they really want—and what they are willing to do to get it.

A brilliant send-up of our cultural mythology around romance, The One examines the reality of love and desire set against a world of ultimate artifice and manipulation.

©2023 Julia Argy (P)2023 Penguin Audio

Reseñas de la Crítica

One of:
Harper’s Bazaar’s Best Queer Reads of 2023
Elle's 65 of the Best and Most Anticipated Books of 2023
E! News' 15 LGBTQ+ Books to Read During Pride
New York Post's Required Reading Picks
The Millions' Most Anticipated Books of 2023
BookBub's Must-Read Books of Spring
Scary Mommy’s New Summer Reads

“Incisive and insightful, Argy’s debut novel [is] a thoughtful meditation on female competition, love and beauty as currency, and the many other threads underpinning America’s obsession with reality television.” –Harper’s Bazaar

“Argy does an admirable job of describing the flimsy cheapness of everything that surrounds the contestants…[She] has a keen and often funny eye for detail [and] evokes the fetid coziness-meets-eroticism of female friendship with aplomb. Her prose is absorbing.” –The New York Times Book Review

“[A] fast-paced and literary debut novel…The One manages to be entertaining in its examination of behind-the-scenes, and searing and true in its send-up of love.” –Salon

Fantastic book

Loved the character building and story of this book. Julia Argy is a very skilled writer and that shines through!

This one's for fans of The Bachelor

Julia Argy delivers a well rounded debut that has everything I would want from a coming of age story. After listening, I’m wondering if I need to re-evaluate my relationship with dating shows, as I dont normally watch any.

The One follows Emily, she's just lost her job and doesn't have much of anything going on. She meets a producer, Miranda, who gets her to go on a bachelor style TV show to find "love"

as the story progresses, It's clear to Emily that she doesn't know who she is, and the plot is majorly centered about her discovering who she is, in the midst of a national TV show.

The One was an amazing listen! The narrators both gave depth to characters that were each going through their own journeys without it being overwhelming to the plot of the story. Argy’s use of dual POVs paired with the super detailed descriptions and insights on reality shows left me ready to listen to my next Argy novel.

Don't recommend

Not much to this story and was disappointed with the whole book and the ending