Seven Exes — Books, Beauty, & Buys

By: Lucy Vine
Published Year: 2023
Publisher: Harper Perennial
Pages: 432

Summary (Provided by Goodreads): A delightful rom-com about a woman who decides to revisit each of her seven exes, convinced that one of them is “the one who got away.” Seven Exes. Seven Missed Chances. Who was the one who got away? Esther is nearing thirty, with a great job and a flat she shares with her two best friends, Bibi and Louise. But her life is missing that special someone. Tired of being single and sick of bad date after bad date, she thinks she’s found the answer to her romance problem in an old women's magazine. According to the magazine’s dating column, there are seven archetypes a woman will date before finding Mr. Right. It all seems silly at first, until Esther realizes she has exactly seven exes that match the The First Love, The Work Mistake, The Overlap, The Friend with Benefits, The Missed Chance, The Bastard, and The Serious One. Is it so hard to believe that perhaps one of them is The One? Deciding she must have left her true love in the reject pile, Esther contacts each of her old boyfriends. But finding her soulmate isn’t as simple as she hoped it would be. Madness, mayhem, laughs, and tears ensue as she valiantly works her way through her past love life and faces up to her previous mistakes. It’s an odyssey of the heart that will teach her a lot about herself . . . and just might lead her to the man of her dreams.

First Impressions

I found this book in a bookshop at the airport in England. The cover and title immediately caught my eye and when I read the summary I was hooked. It sounded like a cute story with a fun twist.

What I thought

This book was interesting.

Esther has had a string of bad dates. When she and he friends discover an article in a magazine about how everybody has Seven Exes but that one of them is “The One” she realizes that she’s already maxed out on her seven and decides to revisit them. Her two roommates and best friends help her along this mission while she reaches out. As she reconnects with her past, will she discover that one of these guys was her One?

This book was predictable but also had some little twits I didn’t see coming. It had second chance romance, but also had Esther realizing that she broke up with certain people for a reason and that reason wasn’t going to change. Esther was self-involved and a little immature, but showed growth and deeply cared about her friends. It was an interesting dichotomy of a story.

I could see a lot of people disliking Esther because of her immaturity, but for some reason it didn’t bother me? I think the only part I got annoyed with was her slacking off on her duties at her job to pursue this idea that she has to find The One. Well, and maybe that she was trying so hard to convince herself to like some of the guys when it was obvious she didn’t.

I appreciated how the story showed that confronting your past doesn’t always mean that there was a fairy tale you missed but that everyone who comes into your life comes in for a reason. This book felt realistic to me in that she didn’t immediately meet with an Ex and have a whirlwind romance.

The balance for this book was her friendships. While she isn’t always the best friend, her friends also aren’t perfect so it doesn’t get frustrating. I think I was honestly more irritated with her friend Lou and how she treated Esther and their other friend Bibi than I was with Esther when she was lacking with her friendships.