BOOK REVIEW: Just One Day

Hello All,

I have officially finished book 4 of my 2017 reading goal! In case you've missed the reviews so far this year you can catch them there ---> Since You've Been Gone & As Old As Time (I didn't write one for the second book I read because I was so busy right around the time I finished it). According to Good Reads I am 27% of the way through my 2017 reading goal of 15 books! But that's not why you guys came here, you came here to read a book review so let's get started.

The fourth book I read this year was Just One Day by Gayle Forman (I added the Good Reads link because it tells you places where you can buy it).  Which follows the character Allyson through one year of her life. It starts at the end of her summer trip the summer between high school and college. The biggest and most exciting summer of your life. On the last day of the trip she meets a Dutch boy named, Willem and the two of them go to France for just one day. The next morning she wakes up and Willem is gone and she spends the rest of the year attempting to find Willem again as well as find the girl she was that day in France. 

This book has been on my To Be Read list for such a long time. Mainly because I loved the books If I Stay and Where She Went by the same author, Gayle Forman (You can read the joint review I wrote here). I had heard in a few different places that these books was not as good as the fore mentioned novels. But I still wanted to give this book a chance. And to be honest I agree with the opinion I've seen floating around the internet. 

I guess I should start with my biggest issue, I didn't like the main character of the novel. I felt like she spend the majority of the novel complaining instead of doing something about her issues. She also came across as very judgy in my opinion. In fact I think the only character she didn't judge harshly was Willem. 

After reading the back summary of the novel I knew that the majority of the book would follow Allyson life post the day with Willem but she spend 100 of the 360-some odd page novel with Willem. Which was good to build the love connection between Allyson and Willem but it made the rest of the book feel rushed. There were pieces of her life post that day that I would have loved to learn more about. 

The ending to me also felt like it drew on forever. Like I kept thinking I was at the end and there was still like twenty more pages. Maybe if I had liked the character more then I would have like how drawn out it felt but I just wanted her to figure it out what she wanted.

As much as I didn't like the book I do plan to eventually read it's sequel, Just One Year which follow Willem through the same year. Maybe I'll like Willem more. Although I won't be reading it right away because I need a break from these characters.

I'm not sure who I would recommend this book to. I don't want to say no one because there is a very huge chance that because I didn't like the main character I wasn't able to see the positive side of this book. I feel that this book has the potential to be read by someone at that exact time in their life when they need to read it and have the message help them through whatever hurdle they are struggling with. So, maybe I would recommend it to anyone who is sitting on the edge of who they were and who they are going to be, people going through a huge life change.

I like to rate the books I read on a scale of 5. I've gone back and forth about what I was going to rate this book and I have decided that this book is getting a 3.25 on my scale. The writing was good and the story was a good concept I just didn't love the other elements. 

Have you read Just One Day? What did you think of it? Let me know in the comments below.

Source

*This post was not sponsored by any of the linked sites. All thoughts and opinions are strictly my own 

and I was in no way compensated for mentioning them ***