The One That I Want: A Novel [Hardcover]

Allison Winn Scotch (Author)

Book Description

Publication Date: June 1, 2010

Tilly Farmer is thirty-two years old and has the perfect life she always dreamed of: married to her high school sweetheart, working as a guidance counselor in her hometown, trying for a baby. Perfect. 

In fact, on the surface you might never know how tough things used to be. At seventeen, Tilly lost her mother to cancer, her father drowned his grief in alcohol, and she played parent to her two younger sisters more often than being a kid herself. Still Tilly never let tragedy overtake her belief that hard work and good cheer could solve any problem. Of course she’s also spent a lifetime plastering a smile on her face and putting everyone else’s problems ahead of her own.

But that relentless happiness has served her well—her sisters are grown and content, her dad is ten years sober, and she’s helping her students achieve all their dreams while she and her husband, Tyler, start a family. A perfect life indeed.

Then one sweltering afternoon at the local fair, everything changes. Tilly wanders into the fortune teller’s tent and is greeted by an old childhood friend, now a psychic, who offers her more than just a reading. “I’m giving you the gift of clarity,” her friend says. “It’s what I always thought you needed.” And soon enough, Tilly starts seeing things: her father relapsing, staggering out of a bar with his car keys in hand; Tyler uprooting their happy, stable life, a packed U-Haul in their driveway; and even more disturbing, these visions start coming true. Suddenly Tilly’s perfect life, so meticulously mapped out, seems to be crumbling around her. And she’s not sure what’s more frightening: that she’s begun to see the future or what the future holds . . . 

As Tilly furiously races to keep up with—and hopefully change—her destiny, she faces the question: Which is the life she wants? The one she’s carefully nursed for decades, or the one she never considered possible?

Editorial Reviews

From Publishers Weekly

In the latest from Scotch (Time of My Life), a clichéd story of a baby-craving 30-something, gives way to an aching, honest look into the death and rebirth of relationships. Tilly Farmer is a high school guidance counselor who married her high school sweetheart, has never left her hometown of Westlake, Wash., and is sure that the key to her happiness is getting pregnant. When an unexpected encounter with an old grade school friend (now a psychic) leaves Tilly with the ability to see the future, what she foresees is not a baby but losing her husband to a job in Seattle. Though the far-fetched plot device feels tired, Scotch combines the fallout of Tilly's visions with the burdens of an alcoholic father, angry younger sister, and deceased mother to bring her character into focus. Scotch answers hard questions about the nature of personal identity and overwhelming loss with a wise, absorbing narrative. (June)
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From Booklist

Scotch (The Department of Lost & Found, 2007; Time of My Life, 2008) specializes in heroines at a crossroads, questioning their life choices and preparing to embark on journeys of self-discovery. Here she hews closely to this formula. Tilly Farmer is aggressively insistent in claiming that she loves her life, including marriage to her high-school sweetheart and a job as a high-school guidance counselor. She’s actually in a rut but doesn’t know it, until a fortune-teller provides her with the gift of “clarity” regarding the future. The more honest Tilly is about her emotions—especially the anger, resentment, and grief tamped down since the death of her mother—the more her perfect world unravels and the closer she comes to real happiness. Scotch creates eminently relatable characters, with a particularly excellent understanding of the way sisters interact, and has the ability to craft scenes of real emotional weight, so much so that none of her flash-forwards or hocus-pocus is necessary. --Patty Wetli

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Product Details

• Hardcover: 288 pages
• Publisher: Crown (June 1, 2010)
• Language: English
• ISBN-10: 0307464504
• ISBN-13: 978-0307464507
• Product Dimensions: 6.4 x 1.1 x 9.5 inches
• Shipping Weight: 1.1 pounds (View shipping rates and policies)
• Average Customer Review: 4.2 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (52 customer reviews)
• Amazon Best Sellers Rank: #576,010 in Books (See Top 100 in Books)

More About the Author

Allison Winn Scotch is the bestselling author of THE ONE THAT I WANT, TIME OF MY LIFE, and THE DEPARTMENT OF LOST AND FOUND. Her fourth novel, THE SONG REMAINS THE SAME, will be released in early 2012. Prior to delving into fiction, she was a frequent contributor to numerous magazines and websites including Cooking Light, Men's Health, Fitness, Glamour, and Redbook, and now focuses on celebrity profiles for a variety of magazines. She lives in New York with her family. For more about her and her books, go to allisonwinn.com or follow her on Twitter at @aswinn.

Customer Reviews

Most Helpful Customer Reviews

13 of 13 people found the following review helpful:

3.0 out of 5 stars In The One That I Want, June 6, 2010

By 

N. Milenkovic (usa) - See all my reviews
(VINE VOICE)   

This review is from: The One That I Want: A Novel (Hardcover)

In The One That I Want, Tilly Farmer is a married 32 year old guidance counselor, working for the same high school she graduated from. She is married to Tyler, her high school sweetheart, and the two are now trying to have a baby. They both live in the town they grew up in. One afternoon Tilly goes to the town carnival and decides to see the fortune teller, who happens to be one of her old classmates. The fortune teller gives Tilly the 'gift of clarity' and sends her on her way.

Tilly's life is far from perfect. Her mother died to cancer when she was 16, leaving her 2 sisters, her father and herself heartbroken. Tilly managed to cope, but her father succumbed to alcoholism and her younger sister still resents him for it. Now that Tilly has seen the fortune teller, she suddenly has strange episodes where she has visions of the future. When she 'sees' her father getting into his car drunk, then receives the phone call from the police station telling her he is being held for DWI, she begins to wonder how powerful this 'gift of clarity' really is.

Before she knows it, Tilly begins to have other visions of the future, including one where she sees her husband packing his belongings and leaving town. Tilly begins to realize that things aren't what she thought they once were.

I both liked and disliked The One That I Want. The storyline was interesting and I enjoyed the magical realism aspect of it, but for some reason I just could not connect with Tilly's character. She wasn't annoying or anything, I just didn't feel any type of connection to her.
I hate to sound nitpicky, but one thing that bothered me was the language in the story, at times it felt uncalled for and distracting. Don't get me wrong, I'm the first one to drop the 'F' bomb in conversation, but in this story it just distracted me a bit. It felt like it was overdone in some of the conversations. I know Tilly was mad with the situation, but I'd rather have seen her less on the defense.


Like I said, the storyline was interesting. I did enjoy the friendship Tilly has with her best friend Susanna. I liked how the two support each other through thick and thin. There's a scene where Tilly and a few of the girls get together for Susanna's birthday. They have dinner and drink wine and just vent, that felt realistic and I always enjoy female friendships in stories.
There is a plot twist and the end that I thought was good also. All in all, this was an okay read for me. I do recommend it, others might love it. Though I didn't particularly love this book, I would definitely read Allison Winn Scotch again.

12 of 13 people found the following review helpful:

2.0 out of 5 stars REALLY?? Did We All Read The Same Book?, July 11, 2010

By 

Mercedes L. Johnmeyer "The Most Happy" (Summerville, SC) - See all my reviews
(TOP 500 REVIEWER)    (VINE VOICE)    (REAL NAME)   

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This review is from: The One That I Want: A Novel (Hardcover)

Based on all the glowing reviews of this book (which I'm now wondering if a number of them aren't shills by friends of the author), I was expecting to love this book. I absolutely did NOT. I didn't hate it, but I was tempted to quit about half-way through. I stuck with it though...I kept telling myself 'All those people raved about it, maybe it gets better'. Nope.

Right off the bat, I didn't like Tilly. She's not offensive, or rude in any way, but her nickname 'Silly Tilly' is definitely the best way to describe her. I could not relate AT ALL to someone so desperate to relieve her high-school days, that she would become the school guidance counselor just to be able to be there everyday. Her pathetic excitement at planning the prom year after year...she's 32!! Get over it! No WONDER her husband had one foot out the door!

I did like the flashes of her seeing the future. I thought it was the only thing that made the book somewhat interesting and worth finishing. The whole dynamic between Tilly and her husband Tyler began to wear on me though...as did her relationship with her sister Darcy. I could absolutely understand Tyler wanting to leave little Westlake, to see what else life had to offer him. It infuriated me that Tilly, while not wanting to leave the only place she's ever lived (which I can understand), was so close minded that she couldn't grasp how someone else would want to. She wanted everything to stay just it is was...always. And even though her outlook on life changes through the novel, I never really got over my initial dislike for her.

The 'surprise' at the end, the big secret her father's been keeping for years, felt totally out of place. It's almost like it was thrown in as an after thought just to give the story a bit of shock value. Well, it wasn't shocking, it was sad and unnecessary. Overall, I do NOT recommend this book. It's certainly not the worst book I've ever read, but I definitely wouldn't categorize this as a 'Must Read'. I have Ms. Scotch's two other novels on my wishlist, but I think I'm gonna hold off for awhile before attempting another of her books. I'm not ready to write her off completely, but I won't be expecting so much next time around.

4 of 4 people found the following review helpful:

3.0 out of 5 stars Left Me Wanting a Faster Read, July 13, 2010

By 

Girls Gone Reading "Jen" (Chicago, IL) - See all my reviews

This review is from: The One That I Want: A Novel (Hardcover)

Tilly Farmer and I have a lot in common. We are both 32. We both married our high school sweethearts. And we both work in high schools in the towns where we grew up. You would think that all this similarity would breed familiarity, but I found Tilly very difficult to take until the very end of the book. Ironically, I think it was all these similarities that made it harder for me to like her, made me focus on our differences. Tilly, in the beginning, loves prom (I avoid the sponsor for weeks before so I don't have to chaperone), always smiles to fix a problem (anyone who knows me will tell you that I prefer yelling), and thinks her boy-man husband is adorable when he falls asleep watching another baseball game (um...I don't even know how to answer this!).

So as the novel begins, Tilly is "blind" in more ways than one. The fact that it took her two hundred pages to recognize that her husband was a poor spouse was aggravating. The way that she makes excuses for her alcoholic father was not helpful. And the way Tilly spent so much of the book telling me everything was perfect made me want to scream. She ignored the issues in her life for too long in the novel for me to truly love it. And it was this slow beginning that made her ultimate discovery-which came very quickly in the end-lose its punch.

The shining spots of this work came in the end. When Tilly finally finds clarity, she is inspirational. She relaxes and lets the other people in her life handle their own problems. She learns to let go, and that her students, her siblings, and her spouse are able to think without her constant guidance and cliched advice. Tilly almost won me back in these last wonderful fifty pages. She further reminded me of our similarities, when she realizes what she has given up for her family. "I abandoned it: for Darcy, for my family, for my father. I lost myself for them, which we all have to do every once in a while but probably shouldn't do forever." What mother, wife, teacher hasn't sacrificed a lot for their family only to occasionally want it back?

Scotch shows she is a good writer in lines like the ones above, but it was too little, too late to win me back entirely. This is the first time that I have ever read her work, and I would like to read Time of My Life-her first novel. Allison's blog, Ask Allison, is always witty and insightful, and although I never comment I always wish I would. The One that I Want is an interesting idea, but I hope that Scotch's other works cuts to the chase a little faster, and that maybe the characters don't have lives so close to mine!