Just One Year by Gayle Forman

Release Date: Oct. 10, 2013
Publisher: Dutton Juvenile
Age Group: Young Adult
Format: ARC
Source: Publisher
Pages: 323
Buy: Amazon / Barnes & Noble / IndieBound
Description: Goodreads
The heartrending conclusion—from Willem’s POV—to the romantic duet of novels that began with Allyson’s story in Just One Day

After spending an amazing day and night together in Paris, Just One Year is Willem’s story, picking up where Just One Day ended. His story of their year of quiet longing and near misses is a perfect counterpoint to Allyson’s own as Willem undergoes a transformative journey, questioning his path, finding love, and ultimately, redefining himself.

In my review of Just One Day, you may remember that I was essentially straight-up in all the ways dying to read Just One Year like right now Gayle Forman you give me this book and you put it in my hands omg WHY.  In other more word-like words, I was desperate to know Willem’s side of things as soon as humanly possible.  By some manner of magic and/or witchcraft, I managed to snag an advance copy of Just One Year, and I was over the moon about it!  However, I committed the cardinal sin of reading—in a fever to answer my questions, I skipped to the end.  I KNOW; I am a terrible person.  While I’ll try my best to be NO SPOILERS about this, my original feeling was, oddly enough, disappointment.  Over the past few months, I wondered and figured and hypothesized and decided exactly what I wanted from Willem’s point of view.  This no-context, just-the-destination ending wasn’t the book I wanted.

Thankfully, it ended up being the book I needed instead, and we all know that is SO much better.

Upon finishing the entire novel, I had this incredible urge to cry.  Or laugh.  Possibly both.  Together.  I felt sated in a way I didn't think I would be when I began.  The journey itself is the important part, and the destination isn’t nearly the endpoint.  Books—or rather, good books-- teach that in theory, but this duet of stories does that more than anything else I’ve read before.  It is its own double happiness.  It's very nearly overwhelming, so many times over.  Gayle Forman is a spectacular storyteller; she continues to blow me away with each and every novel.  

There are many who won’t agree with me, but while I found him to be an interesting character, Willem de Ruiter wasn’t one of my Book Boyfriends.  He was a little too sure, a little too sad, a little too… something I couldn’t place.  I could see why Allyson was drawn to him, though.  While I read, my previous feeling still applied, but (obviously) it’s clearly understandable why he is the way he is.  Willem and I both learned the power of perspective, almost simultaneously.  Willem is a runner, all in the name of keeping his thoughts on the move rather than standing still.  We soon discover why Willem wants to travel to every nook and cranny of the globe, and I can’t say I blame him.  However, whenever he stops, he sees Lulu’s face.  He enlists a cast of hilarious characters to help him on what he thinks is an impossible quest—find Lulu, the only girl who has stained him.  It’s in the movement and the journey that he discovers what he’s really looking for, and I wouldn’t dare spoil that for you.

In case it isn’t clear, I adored this book just as much, if not more, than its predecessor.  I can see many rereads of this in my future, including a dueling POV reread that will most likely enamor me even more to Allyson and Willem.  If the cover says Gayle Forman, then it’s going to be a life-changing read.

Just One Day by Gayle Forman

Release Date: Jan. 8, 2013
Publisher: Dutton Juvenile
Age Group: Young Adult
Format: ARC
Source: Publisher
Series: Just One Day #1
Pages: 368
Buy: Amazon / Barnes & Noble / IndieBound
Description: Goodreads
When sheltered American good girl Allyson "LuLu" Healey first meets laid-back Dutch actor Willem De Ruiter at an underground performance of Twelfth Night in England, there’s an undeniable spark. After just one day together, that spark bursts into a flame, or so it seems to Allyson, until the following morning, when she wakes up after a whirlwind day in Paris to discover that Willem has left. Over the next year, Allyson embarks on a journey to come to terms with the narrow confines of her life, and through Shakespeare, travel, and a quest for her almost-true-love, to break free of those confines.

Just One Day is the first in a sweepingly romantic duet of novels. Willem’s story—Just One Year—is coming soon!

I’ve ingested so many All-In-One-Day books and movies and episodes of TV before, and yet I never seem to tire of them. In fact, it’s one of my favorite tropes. However, what happens if that magical one day… doesn’t stick? What if the haze of bliss erupts in an instant to show that you’re not changed, you’re not brand new?  You’re still enveloped in all of the things that you don’t like about yourself times about seventy kabillion, and now you’re even more aware of it than you were before. This is Just One Day. This is what Allyson Healey has to face once she awakens alone in Paris after a day unlike any other. After an experience like that, where does she go, not only immediately, but existentially too? How will Allyson find herself again when she wanted to lose herself in the first place? More importantly, how can I find out what happens in Just One Year before next fall?

Just One Day raises so many questions.

I’ve been trying to figure out the best way to say this, so here goes: Allyson makes a ton of decisions that make me crazy and with which I do not agree. However, she is also compelling as hell. These two aspects don’t always mesh, at least in my mind, but in this case, they do in the easiest way. There were times when I may have wanted to grab Allyson by the shoulders and bodily shake her (I know it’s a romantic notion, but DO NOT wander off with a complete stranger to a whole ‘nother country!!), but I also desperately wanted to travel along on her journey. Plus, it’s so easy to slog through the tough parts with Gayle Forman behind the wheel. She writes these densely provocative and beautiful passages that pull you in, yet they are entirely readable and accessible.  She makes you feel smarter while she’s also teaching you something new.  It’s brilliant.

More than anything, I can’t stop thinking about how the story goes past the one perfect day into the starkness of reality.  Everything doesn’t become hunky-dory once you step outside the box, and Allyson finds this out in a pretty harsh way. This is about walking that razor thin line between the straight-laced, non-wave-making Allyson with the throw-a-book-at-a-jackhole-and-run-for-your-life Lulu.  When she falls too much into one “character” or the other, she falls and she falls hard. It’s only when she finds her balance that she becomes even more compelling.

While I blew through this book in a matter of days and absolutely enjoyed it, I know I will love it even more once its companion comes along. Just One Day deftly weaves us through Allyson’s side of things, but it raises so many unbelievably I-need-to-know-right-this-very-instant questions, the most burning of which is Dude, Where’s my Dutchman? Like, honestly. What? Where? How? AND WHY? Willem, I have questions. You have answers. Let’s discuss.

Needless to say, Just One Day is one you need to read, especially for all Gayle Forman fans.  I haven’t craved macarons this much since Anna and the French Kiss. I’ll be rereading this plenty of times between now and Just One Year.

Paperback Review: Where She Went by Gayle Forman

Release Date: April 17, 2012
Publisher: Speak
Age Group: Young Adult
Format: Paperback
Source: Purchased
Pages: 288
Buy: Amazon / Book Depository / IndieBound
Description: Goodreads
It's been three years since the devastating accident . . . three years since Mia walked out of Adam's life forever.

Now living on opposite coasts, Mia is Juilliard's rising star and Adam is LA tabloid fodder, thanks to his new rock star status and celebrity girlfriend. When Adam gets stuck in New York by himself, chance brings the couple together again, for one last night. As they explore the city that has become Mia's home, Adam and Mia revisit the past and open their hearts to the future-and each other.

Told from Adam's point of view in the spare, lyrical prose that defined If I Stay, Where She Went explores the devastation of grief, the promise of new hope, and the flame of rekindled romance.

WARNING: Contains spoilers for If I Stay. 

I will start this review with the first note I wrote to myself immediately upon finishing Where She Went: This is some serious shizz.

(FYI, I didn’t say shizz in my note.)

Adam and Mia’s relationship was never a “normal” teenage romance, but to find out just what happened after Mia decided to stay is heart-wrenching.  Three years later, we find ourselves in New York with rock star Adam and his enormously famous band Shooting Star.  He’s living his life On The Verge- he might topple over, he might resurrect himself, but he’s definitely walking a thin line between sanity and the pit of despair.  On a free day in Manhattan, he serendipitously discovers that Mia is performing at Carnegie Hall.  This leads to the one night reunion of Mia and Adam, where all the good, the bad, and the horrifyingly ugly over the last three years will be exposed into the night.  And it will break your heart.

Where She Went is the sequel that If I Stay deserved, more than any book has ever deserved a sequel.  Funny thing is, it never occurred to me that If I Stay needed a sequel.  Though it ends on a somewhat unresolved note, it is still one of the best and most satisfying books I have ever had the pleasure of reading.