Just One Year (Just One Day)

by Gayle Forman

[Amanda]

Just One Year is the companion novel to Just One Day. Familiar with Forman's companion novels (If I Stay and Where She Went), I was expecting Just One Year to be on the Where She Went level. But it's not; it's not a continuation, it's the other side of the same story. Because while reading Just One Year, you realize both Willem needed a journey too.

And what a journey it is.

After walking through Allyson's world and her year, I came to this book apprehensively. Like I wasn't sure what I'd find and not positive I'd like it once I did. But as Willem's story unravels, I came to understand him -- right as he learned himself too. And it's not a painless story; it hurts. Even though it hurts, it's a necessary hurt. Like Allyson, Willem had to work through his own demons.

My only regret is that I didn't read Just One Day and Just One Year back to back. It's been ten months since I read Just One Day, and though I adored Just One Year, I know, by the very fact I had to pull my copy of Just One Day off the shelf and reread parts of it, that it would have been even better had I read both books closer together.

Even so, I already want to reread both these books. Gayle Forman flays me with her stories. They're the kind of stories that stick with you long after you read them -- the kind that the more you think of them, the more you fall in love with them.