I Owe You One by Sophie Kinsella 📑 BOOK REVIEW

Fixie Farr has one flaw, and this is her obsession with fixing everything; from straightening a crooked object to solving other people's problems. When she saves a stranger's laptop from getting all wet, the laptop's owner, Sebastian, writes her an 'I Owe You' note in order to repay her. Fixie wasn't planning to ask Sebastian for anything until her childhood crush, Ryan, comes back to her life and looks for a job to settle down. So she asks Sebastian to hire him because then she and Ryan will have the future she always dreamed of. Of course, life works in mysterious ways and Fixie ends up owing Sebastian a favour. Will they both manage to get their lives together and get out of the vicious circles of IOU notes? 

This novel belongs to the romance genre, but one of the most important themes is family. Fixie's older siblings, Jake and Nicole, play a vital role to how she sees herself and how she behaves. Although they grew up in a loving family, the three siblings have never been close. On the contrary, they are jealous of one another. It would be much easier for readers to care about Jake and Nicole if their beauty and charm weren't the sole good characteristics ascribed to them. Fortunately, Jake and Nicole are given interesting plotlines from the middle of the book and onwards. All the Farr siblings get to evolve throughout the story and thanks to their changes they pose many questions about happiness, love and life. In spite of the character developments, they are very predictable. There is no mystery behind their actions and their personalities can be summarised in a few words. Nevertheless, I have to be honest and admit that once I got over the exposition part of the book, the drama hooked me up and I was curious to see the characters' reactions to all the obstacles that the author had thrown at them.

My main criticism has to do with the first chapters of the book. First of all, some information is explicitly stated as if readers are incapable of inferring and understanding things on their own. For example, the book starts explaining how whenever Fixie sees problems, she has to 'fix them, right here, right now' and she lists two incidents where she tried to fix things but she accidentally made matters worse. These two events could have been omitted as  she goes on informing us that she is in the family shop, where she works, and she has spotted a stain that she desperately wants to clean. It would be much more effective for readers to understand what a perfectionist and control-freak Fixie is by being introduced to her while she is in the shop, which plays a crucial part to the whole plot, and noticing the stain. Besides overanalysing, there is also a lot of repetition. The phrase 'family first' enables everyone to understand that the protagonist will try to unite the members of her family no matter how hard that may seem or how distant they are. By repeating it over and over without attributing any new meaning to it, the phrase loses its significance and becomes annoying.

I would also like to note some sexist instances that left a bad taste in my mouth. To begin with, presenting Nicole as a beautiful but stupid and vain woman —as she leaves her sentences unfinished and spends her time doing yoga and being on her phone— is a stereotype that prevents readers from appreciating her as a character. Additionally, there is the stereotype that men cannot enjoy objects that are associated with femininity. More specifically, Fixie is wondering: 'Do guys like flowers? They might say they do, but do they actually? No. I don't think they do. I think guys actually like cans of beer and expensive remote controls and football games.' She even goes on looking for a 'masculine plant' as a gift for a man. The whole passage is really ridiculous as not all men enjoy the same things and men can actually like things that look delicate and beautiful.

To conclude, I Owe You One is a romance story with family drama that adults can enjoy. It is not a literature gem, but it can be a fun read.