Book Review: Just One Year - Gayle Forman

Title: Just One Year (Just One Day #2)

Author: Gayle Forman

Release Date: October 10th 2013

Publisher: Dutton Juvenile

Age Group: Young Adult

Source: Bought

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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.

(Slight spoilers for book one.)

I really think that if you've read Just One Day, then it's just impossible to not want to read this companion novel. I mean, the curiosity! Don't you want to know what in heaven's name happened to Willem de Ruiter after that one fateful day in Paris? Because I sure did. 

And I knew it.

We all got from the first book that Willem is the kind of guy who can't stay long in one place because he has a thing against attachments. He's got an entire United Nations of girls waving their flags at him, right? Well, in this book, we solve the mystery that is him. And I certainly am glad to know that he didn't give up, that he actually looked for Allyson even before she started looking for him. It was really amazing to see how their single day together changed the both of them, but especially with Willem because his playboy ways made me think that he just forgot about her and moved on to his next country and next girl.

Gayle Forman's writing in here is still the same beautiful one that made it so easy to breeze through this duology. Just One Year captivated me but, somehow, it didn't have the same emotional zing as Just One Day, and that's probably because I related more with Allyson than with Willem. My situation is more similar to hers, but I sympathized with how lost he felt. This book also had me pondering more about all sorts of things.

Nothing happens without intention, Willem. Nothing. This theory of yours - life is ruled by accidents - isn't that just one huge excuse for passivity?

It was frustrating how he and Allyson got so close during their search for each other. Like, they got within a hundred feet of each other without them both knowing! Theirs was definitely not a small world. Anyway, thanks to Willem's trust fund and wanderlust, there was more traveling to be had in this book. I admired how brave he was, intentionally getting lost in foreign land and exploring it, but it was also sad because it showed how alone he was. Or, rather, how alone he felt.

Overall, I didn't enjoy Just One Year more than Just One Day, but it was still one emotional read. When I finished reading it, I just sighed because I was glad it's done, not because I hated it that I was happy to finally get it over with, but because I was so happy that Willem finally found his home. Now can I ask for some kind of epilogue?

MY FAVORITE PART was

Maybe he was overwhelmed, like I am overwhelmed, by that mysterious intersection where love meets luck, where fate meets will.

RATING:

Book Review: Just One Day - Gayle Forman

Title: Just One Day (Just One Day #1)

Author: Gayle Forman

Release Date: August 20th 2013 (first published January 8th 2013)

Publisher: Speak

Age Group: Young Adult

Source: Bought

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Allyson Healey's life is exactly like her suitcase - packed, planned, ordered. Then on the last day of her three-week post-graduation European tour, she meets Willem. A free-spirited, roving actor, Willem is everything she’s not, and when he invites her to abandon her plans and come to Paris with him, Allyson says yes. This uncharacteristic decision leads to a day of risk and romance, liberation and intimacy: 24 hours that will transform Allyson’s life.

A book about love, heartbreak, travel, identity, and the "accidents" of fate, Just One Day shows us how sometimes in order to get found, you first have to get lost... and how often the people we are seeking are much closer than we know.

Holy. Crap. What the asdfghjkl did I just read?!

Well, one of the best asdfghjkl books I've ever read is what it is. Reading Just One Day didn't feel like I was getting a story relayed to me; instead, it was like having a conversation - a witty, funny, and poignant conversation with a stranger whom I felt like I'd known forever. It was also a journey that I might as well have taken myself because this was damn good writing. It pulled me in and made me feel every little flutter and drop.

Allyson is the good girl who usually stuck with the safe and old. Fresh out of high school, her parents send her on a trip around Europe that doesn't quite meet her expectations, but a few days before she's about to fly back home, she meets Willem, a wandering Dutch two years older than her who can recite Shakespeare in French - so swoony, I know. When he learns that she's bummed because she wouldn't make it to Paris, he offers to take her there for a day, and she accepts.

During Allyson and Willem's eventful day in Paris, I got the same feels I had when I watched Before Sunrise. They walked, talked, ate, laughed, saw, and ran, and that may sound boring but it's not because through all that, they felt. Watching them meet and connect and stain each other all in one day was a real treat because it was serendipity at its finest. And haven't we all felt that at least once? Perhaps when we met a friend or, closer to Allyson's case, a lover? It fascinates me how something magical like the story in this book can actually happen in real life.

But after that one enchanting day, it was like getting caught in a rainstorm that was Allyson's life. Even a month after, she was clearly as hurt and lost as if it had only been a day. I really pitied Allyson because her old, monotonous life suddenly seemed infinitely better than her new, confused reality; I'd never wanted to hug a fictional character so much before. What made her confusion worse was that no one understood her pain, not even her best friend who knew what had happened, because how much could you feel for a person whom you'd known for all of just one day? No one knew that the answer was everything.

Just One Day isn't only about the romance that blossomed during that time, though. Willem's abandonment might have left Allyson agonized, but she couldn't deny that he had showed her the kind of person she truly wanted to be: someone who pleased herself instead of other people.  

But still, that whole day, being with Willem, being Lulu, it made me realize that all my life I've been living in a small, square room, with no windows and no doors. And I was fine. I was happy, even. I thought. Then someone came along and showed me there was a door in the room. One that I'd never even seen before. Then he opened it for me. Held my hand as I walked through it. And for one perfect day, I was on the other side. I was somewhere else. Someone else. And then he was gone, and I was thrown back into my little room. And now, no matter what I do, I can't seem to find that door.

Allyson being lost and unknowing of what to do with her life was a bit hard for me to read because that is me right now. I may have not met a cute guy on the train and fallen for him while touring the city of love, but I am her. I'm in college, studying things I'm not even interested in, afraid to disappoint everyone who expects hugely different things from me. And until now I feel uncomfortable thinking, when will I have courage like Allyson's and take the leap?

Even though it rekindled my wanderlust - and taught me not take one of those tour packages with the tour guides for when I finally do get to travel - Just One Day, ultimately, scarred me. I am never going to fall in love! ...Yeah, not quite like that. I mean it scarred me in a way like how Allyson was pained but now it's over and she's stronger. Okay, I think this is the end of me making sense in this review, so just trust me when I say that this book is so good, I finished reading it with tears in my eyes, and then I facepalm-ed and screeched because I didn't have a copy of Just One Year yet.

MY FAVORITE PART was Allyson and Willem's just one day, of course.

RATING: