Book Review: Just One Day by Gayle Forman

Title: Just One Day

Author: Gayle Forman

Series: Just One Day #1

Genre: Contemporary YA

Publisher: Dutton Juvenile

Release date: January 8, 2013

Amazon | Goodreads

Challenge: YA Contemporary Challenge

Source: Bought

Summary: When sheltered American good girl Allyson “LuLu” Healey first meets laid-back Dutch actor Willem De Ruiter at an underground performance of Twelfth Night in England, there’s an undeniable spark. After just one day together, that spark bursts into a flame, or so it seems to Allyson, until the following morning, when she wakes up after a whirlwind day in Paris to discover that Willem has left. Over the next year, Allyson embarks on a journey to come to terms with the narrow confines of her life, and through Shakespeare, travel, and a quest for her almost-true-love, to break free of those confines.

Advertisement

Book Review: Small Damages by Beth Kephart

Title: Small Damages

Author: Beth Kephart

Genre: Contemporary YA

Publisher: Philomel

Release date: July 19, 2012

Amazon | Goodreads

Source: Bought it

Summary: It’s senior year, and while Kenzie should be looking forward to prom and starting college in the fall, she is mourning the loss of her father. She finds solace in the one person she trusts, her boyfriend, and she soon finds herself pregnant. Kenzie’s boyfriend and mother do not understand her determination to keep the baby. She is sent to southern Spain for the summer, where she will live out her pregnancy as a cook’s assistant on a bull ranch, and her baby will be adopted by a Spanish couple. 

Alone and resentful in a foreign country, Kenzie is at first sullen and difficult. She begins to open her eyes and her heart to the beauty that is all around her and inside of her.