Synopsis:
Allyson Healey's life is exactly like her
suitcase—packed, planned, ordered. Then on the last day of her three-week
post-graduation European tour, she meets Willem. A free-spirited, roving actor,
Willem is everything she’s not, and when he invites her to abandon her plans
and come to Paris with him, Allyson says yes. This uncharacteristic decision
leads to a day of risk and romance, liberation and intimacy: 24 hours that will
transform Allyson’s life.
This book was the best
thing I’ve run into for a long, long while. I fell in love with it in the third
page, when my mind had processed how beautiful Gayle Forman’s writing is. Even
in the first scene, where Allyson and Melanie are just waiting there in line to
see a play, everything was told really naturally, really gracefully and with
complete honesty. And that’s the kind of writing that I enjoy reading the most.
About the characters...
the secondary characters, meaning everyone who’s not Allyson or Willem, were
pretty strong in the novel, allowing the main characters to express themselves
with other people who reflected different characteristics of theirs. Céline was
a part of Willem that he didn’t show to Allyson (or Lulu), just like her
friends, both Melanie and the ones she met at university, and her family helped
developing the character. Since the story was focused on Allyson, Willem was
sort of an unknown character to us readers; we only knew what Allyson knew,
which was interesting. He remained sort of a mystery throughout the whole
novel, and that’s why the second book in the bilogy is about him, about his
life and his feelings.
The story didn’t have
much of a plot, since it was mainly about finding that guy Allyson spent a day
with. But I like the idea. I don’t think it’s feasible in real life, I mean,
it’s only one day; that many things and feelings and obsession happening in a
day? I find it beautiful that she spends a full year looking for him, but I
don’t see it that realistic. But the thing about the book, how I interpret it,
is that the important thing is not the stuff that happens, meaning the action
is not the main thing. It’s a story about hope, memories, love, and, above
everything else, accidents.
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