Just One Year by Gayle Forman

Publisher: Random House Children's UK
Date: October 10th 2013 by
Pages: 336
Source: Publisher
Age Range: Young Adult

In this sequel to Just One Day Willem de Ruiter who we got to know in book one, wakes up in the hospital in France. He doesn't know what happened to him. Only that he had an adventurious and romantic day in Paris. With a girl named Lulu, which isn't her real name and who he has lost now. When he is released from the hospital, he makes a plan to search for Lulu. But he also has to track his mother Yael down, who seems to work in India now. He travels to Mexico and back to back to Amsterdam to meet up with his friend Broodje again, and maybe find out more about where Lulu is. But after months of searching with no result, he wonders if he will ever find her back.

I have very mixed feelings about Just One Year. Just one Day was so amazing, so I had high expectations of this sequel. It was not quite what I expected of it. I expected an adventurious search for Lulu by Willem, where he somehow alsmost tailed her maybe with a spectacular finding back-moment. This book is mostly a story about the traveling of Willem, and more a search for his mom Yael then for Lulu, who seams only to continue at the end of the book. I found the traveling parts quite pointless at some points, especially the part to Mexico which seemed only a story-filler. At the end, Willem decides to stay in Amsterdam, and not to travel to Yael who is suddenly back in India and asks him to come over to stay with her. He stays in Amsterdam and get's a tole in a local theatre group and is reveiled if he will see Lulu back. The end was also not what I expected, I found the way Luly came back a bit unbelievable. Overall, I found Just One Year not my most favorite book by Gayle Forman, but I am pretty sure she will surprise us again with a fabulous next one!