Just One Year

By Gayle Forman

Companion Novel: Just One Day

ISBN: 9780525425926

Publisher: Dutton Juvenile

Publication Date: October 10th 2013

Number of Pages: 323

Source: Local Library

Goodreads Summary: Twenty-four hours can change your life . . .Allyson and Willem share one magical day together in Paris, before chance rips them apart. The romantic, emotional companion to Just One Day, this is a story of the choices we make and the accidents life throws at us. But is one day enough to find your fate? 

My Rating: 

This review contains spoilers

This book is the same story we read about in Just One Day, except this time it is told from Willem's point of view. I guess my disappointment with this book lies within the fact that we don't get more from Willem & Lulu/Allyson at the end. This companion novel and the format of the same story from a different POV reminds me strongly of Walking Disaster by Jamie McGuire (you can find my review for that book here). It is different in the fact that it isn't his take on the same events during a time period, but what he went through during that year that they were apart.

I did like the character of Willem. It seems like fate really did a favor for him in giving him only one day with Lulu (I will refer to her as Lulu and not Allyson in this review, as this is who Willem is searching for). This was truly a coming-of-age story as Willem really grows as a person during his year of searching - not only is he searching for Lulu, he searches for himself. He makes choices that help him discover what kind a man he is. Lucky for him, he has the money and means to travel to all these different countries. The things he learns from his experiences are what really makes this a likable story and interesting for the reader. 

I found the relationship between Willem and his mother, Yael (an ex-military Israeli) to be strange. Maybe because I have a great relationship with my parents. It seems to me that his parents neglected him emotionally. There did seem to be good family trips when Bram was still with them. It was just the love between Yael and Bram didn't leave much room to love their son fully. They were wrapped up in each other. We do find out later that Yael hadn't completely abandoned her son, but she never let him know that. She worked through others - Mukesh & Marjolein.

The best part of this book is we know that just as Allyson is spending her time searching for him, Willem never gives up on her:

"...it'll have been more than a year since I met Lulu. Any sane person would say it's too late. It already felt too late that first day, when I woke up in the hospital. But even so, I've kept looking. I'm still looking." - Just One Year, 258

I think this book would appeal to both girls (who read Just One Day and wanted more of Willem) and boys, they get a story told from a boy's POV and they might be able to relate to.

Maybe all young people need to be given the money and ability to just travel the world on a whim and see where fate (or will) takes you.

"...maybe we were both wrong, and both right. It's not either or, not luck or love. Not fate or will. Maybe for double happiness, you need both." - Just One Year, 307