Review: The beginning of Happily Ever After for Allyson and Willem we all wanted to see!
Rating: 4 out of 5
Date: 05 29, 2014
I was not one of those people who was horribly disappointed by the ending of Just One Year last year. After seeing Allyson go an entire year in Just One Day looking for her lost Willem and finally finding him, ending the book with a simple introduction, as readers we were excited to get Willem's perspective in Just One Year. We wanted to know what he was going through in his year without Allyson, but let's be real ... what we were really excited to see was how amazing things would be for this meant-to-be couple after they finally found each other again. But Just One Year basically ended as the same moment of introduction that Just One Day did. And A LOT of people were upset about this, writing negative reviews to air their disappointment. I wasn't one of those people. I loved Just One Year for the story of the journey that it was. I loved getting the chance to see the growth of Willem as a person just as I had seen Allyson's growth in Just One Day.But I have to be honest ... when I heard that Gayle Forman was writing this super short novella, giving fans of the story the chance to see "what happened next" I did a little happy dance. Okay ... a BIG happy dance. I was so excited!!And I was not disappointed.Think of this story as just a nice little epilogue to the Just One Day duo of books. You definitely need to have read those books to appreciate this story, but fans of those stories will find the closure that they have been looking for ... the Happily Ever After (or at least the beginning of one) that we wanted. Characters who were part of the main two novels pop up in this one. It is described as "seeing the return on investment" as they have the chance to meet this pair of unlikely lovers (okay, lovers sounds melodramatic for some reason, but I can't think of how to label Willem and Allyson's epic little romance). And as a reader who felt "invested" in this couple I was happy to see that "return" as well.This story is told in third person narration that bounces around differing perspectives ... Allyson to Willem to W to Kate to Willem to Allyson, etc. An entire novel written in this way would probably drive me crazy, but for this story it works perfectly to catch the frenzy of this meeting. After spending just one day together, tragically losing each other with no easy way to find one another again, and then spending a year searching the globe for each other, there would be an almost manic feeling of trying to say everything at once, to make up for lost time. That is how this story proceeds, and it ends up being truly satisfying. Allyson and Willem are meant to be. The universe seems to have lined up to make it so, and it was a joy to finally see Willem and Allyson reap the benefits of it. Four stars and one huge smile! Thank you, Gayle Forman, for this gift you wrote for your fans!