Series: Genre: Publication.Date: October 10, 2013 Pages: 323 (paperback) Published By: Dutton Books Website: Gayle Forman Just One Year on Goodreads My review copy:
Where to get:
Just One Day. Just One Year. Just One Read.
Before you find out how their story ends, remember how it began....
When he opens his eyes, Willem doesn’t know where in the world he is—Prague or Dubrovnik or back in Amsterdam. All he knows is that he is once again alone, and that he needs to find a girl named Lulu. They shared one magical day in Paris, and something about that day—that girl—makes Willem wonder if they aren’t fated to be together. He travels all over the world, from Mexico to India, hoping to reconnect with her. But as months go by and Lulu remains elusive, Willem starts to question if the hand of fate is as strong as he’d thought. . . .
The romantic, emotional companion to Just One Day, this is a story of the choices we make and the accidents that happen—and the happiness we can find when the two intersect.
(Goodreads)
Accident - how I found her. Accident - how I lost her. You have to give the universe credit, the way it evens things out like that.
There's a difference between losing something you knew you had and losing something you discovered you had. One is disappointment. The other is truly a loss.
I didn't realize that before. I realize it now.
Love is not something you protect. It's something you risk.
Minor Spoilers from Just One Day
It's not often that when I finish a book I need the sequel immediately. Normally I can be (relatively) patent enough to wait the year or so until the next release. This was both the case and not the case for the Just One Day series. I immediately needed to read Just One Year after Just One Day, but unfortunately for me, the paperback had not yet been released and wouldn't be for another six months. (My copy of Just One Day is paperback so I needed the same for Just One Year. It's a sickness - don't you judge me)
So I waited for my email to come that my preordered copy had been mailed and when it did, I was thrilled. When it came in the mail on release day, I couldn't have opened the package quick enough.
Just One Year begins with Willem in the hospital not really knowing what's going on. He'd just been attacked my the skinheads (something we learned in Just One Day) and knows he has to be somewhere, just not where. He has vague memories of the day before and of Lulu (aka Allyson) but by the time he remembers everything it's too late.
Willem lives the life of "accidents" that lead him on amazing adventures and introduces him to a rather interesting cast of characters. He meets a woman in Mexico who runs a theater camp out of New York, specializing in Shakespeare. He visits is mother in India and winds up playing the villain in a Bollywood movie.
I love learning more about Willem and watching him life is life for this year helps us understand who he is while giving us peeks into his past, family relationship, and friendships; we get a larger picture of this wanderer. I love that this novel is a romance, but at the same time it's not. It is so much more than that. Yes, Willem is searching for Allyson as he finds trouble getting over her, but it's also about him searching for and finding himself. His search for her is a bit tricker as he doesn't even know her first name and despite his almost giving up a few times, he realizes that he can't stop and most likely never will. Something in him kept looking for Allyson and through this search he finds himself and his double happiness.
Gayle did an amazing job of introducing us to these two characters and allowing us to spend a year with each of them after the events in Paris. I don't think I would have truly appreciated Allyson's story without Willem's or vise versa. I know that I definitely would not have appreciated Just One Night without Just One Year (but that's a review for next week).
I do wish I had read these two books closer in sequence, because while one scene was obvious that they were like 50 feet from one another, I have a feeling Gayle entered more little hints and nods to Just One Day that I missed since I hadn't read them closer together. I guess that's what rereads are for!
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