Tags
book, book review, eighties, france, Paris, romance, travel, young adult, young adult fiction
Just One Day (2013)
by Gayle Forman
Hardcover Edition
Publication Date: January 8th, 2013
Publisher: Dutton Juvenile
Buy a copy via Amazon.
Synopsis from 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.
My Thoughts:
Just One Day is a surprising book, it’s warm and charming, but also unexpectedly powerful. From the title, I thought I knew what the entire book would be about: a girl falls in love in a day, and the couple triumphs amongst naysayers who claim you can’t love someone without “knowing” them. But Gayle Forman’s Just One Day is so much more than that. Just One Day isn’t about romance (don’t worry, there’s a bunch of that too) so much as about a reserved girl learning who she is, and who she wants to be. And the growth you see in Allyson, aka Lulu is what makes Just One Day shine brightly.
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Posted by Lilian @ A Novel Toybox | Filed under Book Reviews, Grade B, Young Adult