Just One Day
Call it an accident, serendipity, or a miracle, a single event comes to define a year in Allyson Healey’s life. Straitlaced Allyson finds her postgraduation trip to Europe (“Teen Tours!”) underwhelming until she makes the uncharacteristic decision to follow Willem, an actor in a “Guerilla Will” performance of Twelfth Night, to Paris for a single day. Before you start thinking this is a teen version of Before Sunrise (and the first third kind of is), Willem seemingly up and disappears after a one-night stand. What follows is a tumultuous freshman year for Allyson, filled with what-ifs, severe depression, and, finally, strength as she decides to seek the truth of what happened that day. Although some readers may feel frustrated with Allyson’s descent into the depths of despair after a 24-hour affair, others—the romantics—will get swept up in the story, which has it all: true love, Paris, Shakespeare, and, yes, the notion that “anything can happen in just one day.” The believers won’t want the story to end; luckily, Just One Year, told from Willem’s point of view, is on the horizon.            HIGH-DEMAND BACKSTORY: Forman’s If I Stay (2009) and Where She Went (2011) were New York Times best-sellers. This is lighter fare from the popular author, and teens will be waiting for it. Grades 9-12. --Ann Kelley--This text refers to theHardcoveredition.