I was thoroughly fascinated by this book! It's a delightful slow burn, filled with the classic "will they or won't they" tension and an endearing friends-to-lovers storyline. The story is infused with the energy of the early 2000s that will take you on an emotional rollercoaster.

This novel follows Ella and her best friend, Lowe, from their teenage years to their thirties. The novel portrays their bond so authentically and relatable that I felt every moment, every argument, and every almost-kiss. Their connection throughout the years had me reading rapidly, eager for the conclusion.

The only reason this is not a five-star review is that there were parts that seemed to be longer than necessary for my preferences. However, this could have been my impatience in wanting to discover the outcome—make of that what you will!

i received this book as an ARC but i believe it’s been released now !! (thank you @netgalley)
it just took me forever to get to it 🤭🤭

so i’d like to preface this by saying i am not typically a romance reader, but something about this book just drew me in !!

firstly, this book is giving one day meets angus, thongs and perfect snogging meets bridget jones’ diary 💝 the way dockrill writes being a teenage girl is so perfectly done and made me feel so nostalgic and reflected the entire way through. she just hits the nail on the head with girlhood, female friendships and teenage crushes.

lowe, the mmc, was just so adorable and angsty, i was so in love with him through ella’s eyes. everything she found endearing i did too, which is a credit to dockrill’s writing.

i do really recommend this! it was fast-paced, relatable and made me CRY 😭😭😭

i know my girl ella would’ve listened to the prophecy by taylor in her bedroom and SOBBED if she’d had TTPD when she was a teen💔💔

3.75 stars
💝💝💝

I received an advance review copy for free, and I am leaving this review voluntarily.


I Love You, I Love You, I Love You by Laura Dockrill is the story of Elle and Lowe who meet as tenagers in 2000.

Over the next fourteen years they become close but as their lives go indifferent directions it is better to love each other from afar.

Although I Love You, I Love You, I Love, tells the story of the relationship Between Ella and Low, the story is told entirely through Ella’s perspective only, the novel has two timelines through one in the present day and another starting from 2000, moving to the present.

What I like about the way that Laura Dockrill executed the division in timelines throughout the novel is that the change only happened at the start of the chapters.

In addition to the timeline only changing at the start of chapters the story stayed on the time period for more than one chapter, this allows readers to really get to grips with what is happening in the story without flip flopping all the time.

The one thing that worried me as I started to get into I Love You, I Love You, I Love You came from the plot and the choices of the writer. Firstly the whole story is told from one perspective and that person is a teenager at the start of the novel.

The Second thing was the pilot line of the novel being told over 14 years is that the novel would be full of woe is me angst.

Yes there was a time when this could have been the case however, Laura Dockrill’s writing while at times could have gone over the top particularly at the start when Ella the narrator of the story was 14, this never happened.

While a novel that is only told through one perspective, other characters can lack depth as we only see one perspective, however the Elle’s family, and friend group outside of Lowe had enough distinction to at least recognize them as the came and went in the story.

As for the love of Elle’s life Lowe, yes he is put on pedestal and seems to be the perfect male for Elle at least, although there was never a time that this love feast was over the top, which could have happened as the story is told from one perspective.

While a number of reviews say that this is a perfect novel for the specific generation who were teenages at the dawn of the millennium and yes they will get a lot of the specific references, that may go over the heads if you are of a different generation.

However the craft that I Love You, I Love You, I Love You by Laura Dockrill is written makes this a must read for anyone who has had a first love..

I enjoyed this book but found it didn’t grip me.

Ella is 14 when she meets Lowe and she certainly likes him but they end up as friends. We see over the years how they interact being on the phone to each other and when older occasionally sending texts. They end up with different people where we thought they might get together. It was always a case of will they won’t they.

I thought the book could have been a bit shorter the best bit where I wanted to know what happened was at the end I kept reading on to find out.

The characters were likeable and certainly worked well together.

In this childhood friends to lovers book, we follow Ella and Lowe as they meet as teenagers and grow up together in the early 2000s. This book was heavily nostalgic for me, with lots references to things I had forgotten existed. Reading from Ella’s first crush and her navigating all the feeling surrounding growing up all the way till adulthood was a very special experience. This book makes you experience all the highs and lows of life in such a short space of time. It’s truly impressive how the author was able to write such an authentic and raw romance book.

This lovely romantic story spans two decades of an unrequited teenage crush. I found myself rooting for Ella and Lowe to communicate their obvious perfect match, but the suspense of "will they, won’t they" kept me hooked. The humor and poignancy, especially the cringy yet laugh-out-loud teenage moments.

I love you, I love you, I love you is primarily set over the summer of 2000 when Ella and her friends are 14 and Ella falls in love with Lowe. The novel then moves through the years, chronicling the ‘will they won’t they’ relationship between Ella and Lowe.
Although I’m over 15 years older than Ella I still found much to enjoy about a teenagers coming of age in the 2000s. Ella has a distinctive voice and her insights into life , love and her family are hilarious. I found myself laughing out loud more than once.
I did find that the storyline was a little drawn out and I became impatient for the ending but overall this was an enjoyable read.
Many thanks to NetGalley and the publisher for the opportunity to read and review this digital ARC.
3.5 stars

📚 review 📚
i love you i love you i love you - laura dockrill


i knew this book and i would get on the moment the price of freddos were brought up. i thought life as a teen in the naughties was behind me but this brought it all back. in fact, this might be the one day for those of us who grew up in a time where you either used the phone or the internet, a time where mobile phones were few and far between and you actually got charged if your texts were too long. this is a book about millennials for millennials by a millennial. it’s like looking at a photograph from my last years at secondary school.

i’ve always enjoyed laura dockrill’s writing and her adult debut is no exception, i love you i love you i love you is immersive, heartbreaking, funny and bittersweet. it’s a romance that feels very different to the romances ive read recently, it has the feel of something more literary whilst still capturing the angst of being a teenager in love and a thirty something having an existential crisis. it’s a second and third chance romance that’s so relatable it hurts at times. it is maybe a little too long, so we have a lot of pining but i think this might be one of those books that never falls out of style and would make the perfect summer time read - now and in the future.

thank you @netgalley for the early copy

I really hate to DNF this, but this is not my cup of tea AT ALL. This is not an inherently negative review, i am just not the target audience for this book and want to make sure others are aware of that. This book was wayyyy to cringey millennial for me, the self deprecating “humour” on every single page was really irritating me. It didn’t come off as funny as authentic, just whiney and cringe. The writing felt like reading someone’s messy internal monologue, and there was nothing in the plot to keep me interested.

A lovely romantic story about an unrequited teenage crush that continues over two decades. It made me want to shout and scream at Ella and Lowe for not communicating what the readers and their friends could see was a perfect love match but then the “will they, won’t they” suspense is at the heart of what makes the story so relateable and compelling. It is funny and poignant and the description of the teenage attempts to get a boyfriend at the garden centre was both cringy and laugh out loud. It brought back memories of silly teenage moments of my own to be honest.

A huge thank you to NetGalley for the opportunity to read this sweet and funny masterpiece.

Laura Dockrill is best known as a children's writer and that shows in this ‘will they won't they, yes of course they will’ romance.

Ella Cole, the central character, is drunk at a wedding at the start of the book which then flashes back to when she was fourteen, full of anxieties and doubts and apparently unable to say what she feels to anyone. She is meant to be that typical teenager for whom everything goes wrong, so when she meets the love of her life, Lowe, she ends up being his friend instead of his lover.

That confusion is maintained throughout the story and even while Lowe becomes famous and Ella gets engaged they still can't have an honest conversation. They even share the same bed on one occasion!

Eventually, there is the dramatic moment at a big party where everything gets put right which will probably make a feel-good film at some point in the future but, by then, it's really quite hard to care.

Although this is a book which knows its market and heads straight for the jugular, there's a sense in which Ella Cole goes from scatty and likeable to something else. She agrees to marry someone who she doesn't love but can't tell the person she does love how she feels, and the escapades with her friends seem to go on a little too long. Maybe she just needs to grow up!

Loved this and couldn't put it down. Very nostalgic - brought back memories from my youth, lots of things that rang a bell. Really gets you involved in the story. A great read.

There was so much I enjoyed about this book, that I was disappointed that I ultimately couldn't love it. Some of the early sections dealing with Ella and her schoolfriends reminded me powerfully of an adult version of the Angus, Thongs... series (this is the highest compliment, by the way), and I also enjoyed how Dockrill portrayed the sense of millennial ennui when you gaze around at a life - still renting in our 30s, still not feeling settled into a career or a family - that doesn't resemble the ones we were told we'd have. However, I struggled to engage with the slow-burning will-they, won't-they romance with Lowe, which (given it's the point of the book) left me feeling somewhat unsatisfied.

I really enjoyed this and couldn't put it down. Normally I find the unrequited love story really frustrating, but this was deftly handled. There were still moments where I wanted to shake one of the leads (or both, in some cases), but there was always other plot twists happening to keep the momentum moving. Also some lovely life lessons, like its all about timing. Both parties have to be in the same space. And if its meant to be ...

Ella and Lowe meet as teenagers and for her, it’s love at first sight. But she is young and insecure and chooses the safe route. Even though the electricity is obvious for all her friends to see. Then life gets in the way. Lowe is talented and charismatic and find success with his band. Ella follows the more traditional route, copywriting until she can build up the courage to finish her book. Their paths keep crossing but the timing never seems right.

A love story worth reading!

I'm really sorry, but I didn't get this book at all! I don't think I'm the right demographic that this book is aimed at. There are a lot of references to teen years in the 2000's, and whilst I wish I was younger, I'm not and I rolled my eyes at some of the scenes set in the 2000's just as much as I actually did the first time round.

It does seem I'm in the minority as there are a lot of great reviews for this book, so please don't take my word for it, it obviously just wasn't the book for me. I have to admit I found the storyline quite slow and struggled to maintain any kind of interest with it. I do however love the cover and that is probably which caught my attention for it in the first place.

This was such a good book. It felt very nostalgic to me and I highly recommend everyone to read it. There was angst and slow burn which is right up my alley.

This novel is a sweet, funny, coming-of-age story about the importance of being honest about your feelings. It perfectly encapsulates teenagehood for girls when each boy has the potential of being “the one”; and the dread of approaching thirty, not quite feeling like an adult yet and haunted by nostalgia.

The plot focuses on Ella, a woman in her early thirties. She has entered the era when all her friends are getting married, having children, and successful careers. There are so many parties, from weddings to birthdays, and constant reminders of missed and unreached milestones, which make her feel bored and inadequate. Despite having just bought an apartment in London with her loving boyfriend, she doesn’t have a career, and her unfinished novel is the only thing she feels worthy of mentioning. Then, one day, she catches the bouquet at a childhood friend’s wedding, sparking regret-tinged memories. In her grungy teenage years of the early 2000s, Ella went to parties with her best friends, listened to mixtapes whilst fantasising about having a boyfriend, and, most importantly, was secretly in love with a boy. She still thinks about him sometimes and the things she could never tell him. He has since become a famous musician, and she has sadly lost touch with him.
In a time-alternating narrative, Ella reminisces and reflects on her past and present relationships and makes decisions about her future.

One thing I really enjoyed in this book is how nostalgic it is for anyone who was young in the early 2000s. At times, it reminded me of the series “Girls in Love” I watched when I was young (based on the Jaqueline Wilson books) and also of a hilarious female “Inbetweeners”. It also made me think of the film “The Worst Person in the World” about decisions and paths taken and relationships that work and others that don’t, and of the book (film and series) “One Day”.

Thank you to Netgalley and the publisher for an ARC of this book in exchange for my honest review.


https://www.instagram.com/p/C8e-3Y1ohqx/?igsh=MTlyNnRlazczeTB5Nw==

Before we begin, is anyone else singing the title as if its the line from Natasha Bedingfield's song, These Words. I hope you are! This song fits in nicely into the 2000s nostalgia that runs through this book (writing this is very hard as I am finding it hard to accept that the 2000s are now considered retro).

If you were a teenager growing up in the 200s then you're going to love the references, the pain, the heartache and even the cringe of fashions, music and life back at the turn of the millennium.

At the start of the novel, Ella, now in her 30s, has beaten off others to catch the bride's bouquet at her friend's wedding. You would think that she's desperate to marry her boyfriend...

Bouncing back and forth between grown up Ella in the present with her boyfriend and her ever growing anxiety for her future, and her teenage self, also riddled with anxiety about the way people see her. She instantly falls in love with Lowe yet she friend-zones herself to escape any potential heart ache (and therefore giving herself heart ache).

The push and pull of love, decision fatigue, and growing up ripple across both time periods.

This is a lively, fun narrative and so very relatable on loving from afar, and the longing and heartbreak of teenage love. I Love You, I Love You, I Love You beautifully captures the fear of rejection, the chaos of growing up not only in your teens but also in your thirties.

This is the slow burn romance we all need to read this summer!

Thank you netgalley for the ebook copy of this book.

Happy release day to this debut novel by @lauraleedockrill, which I was lucky enough to access thanks to @netgalley

I was initially drawn to this book from its gorgeous cover design. It really caught my eye and the blurb only reinforced my desire to read it!

This book felt apt as I was growing up at a similar moment in time, albeit a few years out.

The book spans decades of friendships from the perspective of Ella, who meets Lowe as a teenager and falls in love at first sight. To protect herself and her friends, she claims she’s just his friend…

But as time goes on, she wonders whether Lowe might just feel the same.

I Love You, I Love You, I Love You, will have you asking can you really just be friends with the love of your life?

Set at the start of the 2000’s, this book is filled with nostalgia for growing up at that time and living in London.

Laura Dockrill's adult debut began life when The Guardian profiled herself & her husband several years ago for a love stories piece. Dockrill and her husband met as teenagers, never 'fessed up to their feelings, and were reuinuted years later when all the stars aligned. Now Dockrill has fictionalised their story in the charming (if awkwardly named) I Love You, I Love You, I Love You.

We first meet Ella Cole after she has caught the bouquet at a friend's wedding. She's just bought a flat with her lovely, steady boyfriend, Jackson, and all is going pretty well for her - until Lowe Archer comes calling. Lowe was Ella's first Big Love, and with his (re)introduction into Ella's life, Dockrill spins the tale of their relationship, from love at first sight in the 2000s to the last time they saw one another.

Ella and Lowe are teenagers when they first meet in summer 2000, I'm a good decade behind that, so much of the nostalgia-trip elements were lost on me. However,. Dockrill's depiction of a teenage girl is painfully accurate - the drama of it all! The anguish! The deep-rooted connection with friends and, when Lowe arrives on the scene, the blistering intensity of first love. She does an incredible job of putting it all down on the page, painting a picture of first love that is very hard to not be moved by.


Ella holds on tight to her love for Lowe as the years go by, often to her detriment. The novel leans into a bit of missed-communication tropiness, which I don't love: there were periods where I wanted to shake the two MCs, or,, to borrow from something Ella says in the novel: "Just kiss her, you idiot!". But the two never get it together, and drift apart when Lowe becomes an extremely successful musician in the 2010s.

It pulls the reader from the past to the present, so we can see how Ella's long-burning love for Lowe shapes her as a person as the years go by. There's no doubt that he had an impact on her self-esteem - I wanted more of this in the narrative, it felt dropped in once or twice and not fully explored. I would have loved to havce seen this girl in therapy, basically, lol.


Stylistically, it was bananas. Dockrill makes full use of CAPS LOCK, underlining things for emphasis, and some of the dialogue was wild - at times, it felt like reading a teenager's diary. Which, to be fair, makes perfect sense when the POV character is a teenager! It took a bit of getting used to but I did enjoy the sheer drama of it all.

Emotional, hopeful and sweetly charming, I would love to see this novel take off now that it's published - it would make a fantastic series, I think. If you loved Talking at Night by Claire Daverly last year but want something a little frothier and more fun, this is the read for you!