Just One Day by Gayle Forman
Genre: YA Realistic Fiction
Blurb (on back of book):
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.
MY OPINION: *****
I enjoyed this far more than
If I Stay which is more hyped about. I loved this book!
So much happened and I was shook throughout the entire thing.
Allyson is more of a cautious, safe, good girl who doesn't take risks or go against anyone's rules. When she meets a random Dutch boy named Willem who offers to take her to Paris, she accepts, much to her own surprise. Over the course of one day, she experiences things she never dreamed of before with Willem. But the next day, when she wakes up, he's gone and she's been abandoned and betrayed.
Skip forward a year and we see her at college, still hung up about this boy that she meant for a day. She took on a completely different identity on that day, becoming Lulu and someone else completely and through the help of her guidance counselor, Dee, her friend, and her Shakespeare class professor, she realizes that she can be that person again.
She goes back to Paris in an effort to find Willem and it's a long adventure of trying to get him back and find him. We know that Willem is a player, with a different girl on his arm everyday.
When she finds him, she realizes that he didn't want to leave her just like that and he had left her a note and that he was hurt and that was why he wasn't there. It was SO UNSATISFYING that she didn't know the truth for that whole year but I absolutely loved the whole idea.
Willem. I loved his character but I did think he was a little flaky. He had too many girls and I think he was more of a player than anything. However, his personality and his history and his efforts to be someone else in his world was endearing and I ended up loving his character more than I probably should have. We don't really get to know a lot about him, which is important to the message of the book: people aren't always what they seem.
Shakespeare really played into this book because we see evidence of that message and I really liked seeing how it all worked together. Shakespeare has a legacy and his plays are always going to be remembered and I liked to see it in a novel by a modern day author.
I loved the writing. I could see the characters and the setting and everything happening all around me. The writing style wasn't bland and I do think it was different from
If I Stay which is nice.
I am definitely reading
Just One Year and I cannot wait to start! I would recommend this book to readers looking for a romantic, adventurous read
Main Character: Allyson
Sidekick(s): Willem, Melanie, Kali, Wren, etc
Villain(s): Misunderstanding, abandon, etc
Realistic Fiction Elements: This was all real to life.
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