Book Review: Just One Year

TITLE: Just One Year
Book 2 in the Just One Day Duology
AUTHOR: Gayle Forman
PUBLISHED: October 2013
CATEGORY: YA
GENRE: Realistic Fiction, Romance
PREMISE: So why did Willem not meet Lulu? Well, here's why.
MY REVIEW: As most of you know, contemporary romance isn't normally my thing. I have nothing against it. I know it can be done well. It's just normally, I just find it hard to care. Because normally, most contemporary romance is predictable. Especially YA contemporary romance.
But not Forman and especially not with this set of books. Forman takes all the expected tropes and chucks it out the window. It's not often where a contemporary romance doesn't end up where I totally expected it too, but this one did. For that reason, I can understand why this one didn't make too many people happy. There's this expectation sometimes that the main couple they want will of course wind up together in the end. This one says, why? Why should that automatically be the case? Personally, I loved that, and am thus one of the few who doesn't mind the ending.
This one is maybe not as engaging as Just One Day. But it's nothing really to do with the ending. It's more to do with the wandering plot and I honestly just don't like Willem as much Lulu. But it is nonetheless refreshing to read a contemporary romance that doesn't go the expected route.
WHO SHOULD READ: Just One Day fans, Gayle Forman fans
MY RATING: Four out of Five kissing couples