My Oxford Year

by Julia Whelan

[kimbacaffeinate]

I laughed, swooned, smashed things, cried and adored this complicated story about life and the curveballs it throws you when you least expect it.

“The hardest thing is love, with no expiration date, no qualifiers, no safety net. Love that demands acceptance of all things I cannot change. Love that doesn’t follow a plan.”– My Year at Oxford

When the mood strikes, I enjoy women’s fiction. While this has a romantic element and a coming of age new adult feel that fans of Me Before You and The Fault of Our Stars will enjoy, it also focuses on a young woman who is driven in her pursuit of education and career. She has a plan and love isn’t in the equation but sometimes life happens and it makes you reevaluate everything.

Whelan pulled me in with these complex, flawed characters and talks of poets, politics and family. Spending a year abroad at college spoke to my younger-self. Ok, who am I kidding. I would pack my bags to spend a year at Oxford at fifty. The books, the streets, the pubs…the HISTORY! Oh my!

I could talk about the friends, the romantic arrangement and the secrets or perhaps the pubs, countryside and life lessons, but this book like I suppose Oxford is best experienced first hand. So instead I will encourage you to grab your headphones, a box of truffles and a glass of wine. Then lose yourself in this story. It is one that will stay with you. As someone who listens and reads over two hundred books a year, I love when that happens.

Normally I get nervous when an author chooses to narrator, but Whelan is already an established narrator and a favorite. So naturally she nailed the characters, emotions and tone of the story. I recommend listening. This review was originally posted at Caffeinated Reviewer