Review: Just One Day by Gayle Forman

Author: Gayle Forman
Publisher: Dutton Juvenile
Page Count: 368 pages, Hardcover
Date Published: January 8th 2013
Find it on Goodreads: Just One Day
Source: Gifted (Birthday present from Kaitlyn!- THANK YOU!!!)

A breathtaking journey toward self-discovery and true love, from the author of If I Stay
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!

Just One Day is a breathtaking novel about travel, love and finding yourself. It is a novel that clutched on to my heart and it will stay for a very long time. An unforgettable story that I connected deeply to... Quite the beautiful book.

I never read Forman's If I Stay series. I wanted to, but never got the chance. However, when I read the synopsis for Just One Day, I was immediately drawn to it and knew I had to read it right away. This book.... I feel almost as if it was meant for me... You know? There are some books you like, some you love, and some you adore. And then there are those books that you connect to on such a personal level that it's almost like the author took a peek into your brain and wrote the book using that as inspiration. Does that make any sense? If yes, good. If no, I apologise, but just... go with it! Anywho, Just One Day was one of those books for me, obviously. Written with an undeniably gorgeous style, Forman crafted this book into something of a guidebook for me. Well, not so much a guidebook, but it was a book that helped me see some personal things in a new perspective and it also made me fall back in love with travel stories. I crave travel and so stories where the protagonist is travelling are perfect books for me while I'm stuck at home, doing school work.

One thing I really liked about this book was that the love interest, Willem, wasn't actually present for the majority of the book, as that's what the story is. Allyson and Willem basically have a super romantic one night stand (eh, like I said, just go with it..) and then when she wakes up in the morning, he's gone. She then spends the next year in conflict with herself as she moves to uni, meets new people and tries to re-find the person she was that one night in Paris as well as forget the boy that broke her heart. And then when that doesn't work... Find him. It was really unique, not having him right there the entire book, with most of his appearances in her mind. I really loved Willem's character and cannot wait for Just One Year to read his story. Allyson was a very real character. Yes, she annoyed me at times, but I liked that actually. She wasn't just some non-feeling, super strong protagonist. Yes she was strong but she was also kind of a pushover. She let herself be told what to do by her friend, her mother and more, but this book was about Allyson's growth as a person and we see a gradual change as time goes by. It wasn't an instant click! but a realistic slow and kind of bumpy process. One thing I really liked about Allyson was that while she had the brief thought that she could be in love with Willem after a day, she kind of... corrected herself and rethought. She didn't overexaggerate very often and when she did, she usually realised it and stopped. I don't really know how to describe it, but I just really enjoyed Allyson's character.

I could on for days about this book, but I think I'm just going to leave it at that and let you do the reading and thinking. I know this isn't the book for everyone, but it was definitely the book for me. I loved it and I'm looking forward to rereading it this summer. It was beautifully written with a heart-wrenching story about the journey towards self-discovery. Beautiful.

Happy reading!
~Kristy