Honeymoon by Amy Jenkins

Have you ever met someone whom you are instantly clicked with the first time you see him/her? Whenever you say something, no matter how weird or random the words are (even if you don’t fully finish the sentence), he never fail to understand you. And you, never fail to understand him too. You both like the same weird movie, band, or song which no one else like. And when you see him, you get this little pinch in your heart and it starts to beat faster. Call it chemistry, call it soulmate, name it whatever you want.

Then, have you ever met someone who maybe not fully understand you as your soulmate but he’s willing to be with you all the way no matter how hard it is. He is nothing but always be nice and patient and giving you so much love you think no one else can ever give more. Okay, so you might not feel that little pinch and your heart keeps its normal pace when you see him but you feel this secure feeling that you will never be alone. He might not your other half but he is definitely your guardian.

Meet Honey, a thirty years old woman who has doubts about her nice suitable man, Ed, while still carries torch for the man she spent one night with, 7 years ago, Alex. After the night the accidentally met and spent together with, altough they exchanged emails and phone numbers, somehow Honey didn’t get the letter that Alex sent, and Alex wasn’t around when Honey called. The fact that Honey lives in UK while Alex is in US didn’t make situation better.

So the story of that night stayed at the back of their minds and it became some sort of legend.

7 years on and Honey was proposed by her nice suitable so nice and kind man there’s nothing for it but to say “yes”. Just before the wedding, Honey’s sister, Ven, told her that she accidentally met Alex.

Now, if you don’t want further spoiler, please stop reading.

Still reading? Don’t tell me I've never warned you...

So finally, after 7 years the presence of Alex gets closer to reality. He’s no more just a fantasy man who only lives in Honey’s head. But she decided to not pursue that and walked down the aisle with Ed instead. And they went on honeymoon. Destination Mexico.

Can you guess?

By some incident they missed the plane to Mexico and went to L.A. instead. Oh, can you guess?

They stayed in a hotel there and turned up, Alex and his wife whom he just got married with, were in the next room. Suprise, surprise for both of them. Ed and Alex’s wife of course never heard about the story between them.

And the feeling between Honey and Alex started to blossom again.

“I haven’t felt like that for – I don’t know how long. I can’t even describe it. I felt – I felt that kind of oh-okay-now-I-get-it feeling”, Honey.

I’m not going to reveal the whole story to you. The story is interesting because it’s like the battle between passion and comfort. Like Honey said:

“I always knew and what I forgot – that I never felt passion for Ed. I never felt he was a dream come true, I never had that over-the-rainbow feeling they sell in the fairytales. And I’d thought that that was a good thing. I thought it was grown-up to give up on princes in shining armour – I scoffed at friends who rode the roller-coaster of joy and despair with their gloriously difficult boyfriends. But now I’d had taste of the magic again and I knew with certainty that I had been wrong to give up passion.”

The problem with Ed is this cliche thing: he is too nice and predictable and leaves no room for Honey to feel any bit of insecurity. “With Ed... I never, never didn’t know the answer, I always had something to say. It bored me! I bored myself... knowing it all. I hated always knowing it all”

“With Ed though, like I said, jealousy was never much of an issue. Ed always had this sweety crazy idea that he’d got lucky with me, like he couldn’t do any better. He’d still get furious with me, obviously, but his fundamental position was one of... well, dare I say of... gratiture. So I never thought about Ed looking at anyone else. I felt totally secure. Oh dear. Big sigh. No wonder it hadn’t worked out”

But you know, that passionate feeling can be deceiving. Personally, I don’t think with passion alone you can make the relationship works. You should mix some amount of logic in it somehow. And sometimes, we desperately want something simply because we don’t have it.

It’s like what Honey said about one day when she was 9 years old and her dad took her out to buy a new coat. There were two coats: a shaggy camel colour and a startling black and white ponyskin.

“I could tell my dad preffered the camel but I wanted the ponyskin. Wanted, wanted, wanted. The more my dad explained to me why the camel was the sensible choice, the more I wanted the ponyskin. Then, out of the blue, he capitulated – i could have the ponyskin. It was when he was paying for it that the first doubts set in. Now I’d got it, did I really want it? Would it be hard to wear? What would my friends say? It was like, now it was mine there was something wrong with it”

Summarizing, the book is nicely written by Amy Jenkins. It took me quite long to read the first half. This is typical chicklit which explains too many details of the character’s life to the point it’s almost boring. But the second half is very good. I flipped over the pages in no time.

One of my favorite lines is when Honey said, “It’s like I’m driving along and I have to make a detour – but the road still brings me back to you”

Can you guess who is the detour and who is the final destination?