Saturday 12th January Review of Just one Day by Gayle Forman

Title: Just One Day

Author: Gayle Forman

ISBN: 978-1-849-41566-8

Price: £6.99

                To begin with Allyson Healey lives a very normal, if rigidly organised life. When she graduates her parents pay for her to go on a tour of Europe and evenly though it is informative, well-organised and most of the other graduates including her friend Mel have a lot fun, Allyson feels that something is missing. She is seeing the countries as an American tourist but not feeling the atmosphere or living as they would. She used to be satisfied with staying in while everyone went out, studying hard in order to get into medical school and generally obeying her Mother completely. Things seem to change quickly, however, when she meets Willem a young Dutchman who had travelled for two years and somehow ended up joining a cast of amateur actors, performing Shakespeare. As Allyson watches him acting Sebastian in the acting group’s rendition of ‘Twelf Night’ she begins to fall for him. He calls her ‘Lulu’ stating she looks similar to the 1920s American actress Louise Brooks, due to her short black hairstyle and dark, deep eyes. For the first time in her life Allyson feels special, different and more confident and when Willem offers her an enchanting offer to visit Paris, just for one day, she finds it impossible to refuse…

                Just one day becomes a truer statement than Allyson could have imagined, as Willem disappears mysteriously, leaving her stranded in Paris. Heartbroken, Allyson manages to get home but she is devastated feeling she has lost not only Willem, but also the person she became while she was with him; ‘Lulu’. She hates university and constantly struggles to fit in with her parent’s expectations, often falling short. Eventually Allyson decides to take action, she will find Willem and with him find answers, and hopefully also find the confident, interesting Lulu, such a contrast to the shy boring Allyson.

                This is not your typical American love story. It is, I admit, an American love story, but it contains stunning descriptions of Paris and wonderful elements of different cultures which you never thought you knew. Have you ever heard Shakespeare in French? Did you know there is a word in Mandarin for ‘double-happiness’?

This is also a story about self-discovery, life and loss. In her search Allyson eventually discovers who she really is, after meeting a variety of different personalities and nationalities both friends and enemies. She learns about love and about herself, finding it incredible how just one day in Paris could change someone’s life forever. This book might not have the conventional happy ending, or even be a tragedy, but it does have love, happiness and friendship as well as heartbreak and despair and the trials of growing up and finding out who you really are.

“If Music be the food of love, play on” Duke Orsino, ‘Twelfth Night’ by William Shakespeare.

New Book Reviews

Title: Hidden

Author: Marianne Curley

ISBN: 978-1-4088-2262-3

Price: £6.99

If you enjoy twilight and various other vampire/mythical creature stories but are looking for a change this is an excellent book. It falls under the genre of teen fantasy which has recently become very popular worldwide. However this story is not about vampires or werewolves but angels. What would happen if an angel was taken at birth and hidden somewhere on earth with a mortal family? Ebony lives a sheltered life, never truly understanding why her parents keep her enclosed and isolated, away from the life her friends lead. Everything changes when at a school dance she literally bumps into Jordan and instantly feels a connection with him. Jordan is an unlucky boy whose life never seemed to go right for him. He also has a terrible secret, something he regrets, which has turned his childhood best friend Adam into his worst enemy. When Adam sees Jordan talking to his girlfriend Sophie, tension builds and a fight ensues. Ebony feels an incredible urge to protect this boy who she has only just met and when she returns home that night she feels that her life is not what she understands it to be. She soon begins to suspect that her parents have not revealed the entire truth to her about her birth- that she was born with a twin brother who died- and starts to demand the whole story. However her parents had been told that informing their daughter of her true identity would bring doom on the family and the entire village. Meanwhile Jordan meets Thane, an extraordinary man who promises to change his unfortunate life and make him happier, but first Jordan must help him find the lost angel, the one he had been searching for all his life so he could return to Avena, the human concept of heaven and marry his fiancé who has waited for him for many years… But Ebony has been brought up by atheist parents and refuses to believe talk of angels, heaven or anything out of the ordinary. Jordan realises that making her realise her role in this other world and her past life will be no easy task. Meanwhile the dark Prince Luca, a fallen angel who rules an abandoned realm is growing in power and he is also searching for something. The same thing as Thane and he refuses to be defeated.

Title: The Legacy

Author: Gemma Malley

ISBN: 978-1-4088-3689-7

Price: £6.99

                Before the Hunger Games there was ‘The Legacy’. This is part of a series which I would fully recommend reading all of. It is set in the future where Albert Fern has managed to create a drug that cures cancer in order to save his daughter Elizabeth’s life. However not only does his formula prevent all disease it also create s cells that do not age. In essence he has created everlasting life. But Albert knows the price that comes with this and also knows that he must protect the circle of life at all costs. However his assistant and son in law Richard Pincent does not understand this concept. He wants to recreate the formula into a revolutionary drug that will give people eternal live and make him rich. He orders his bodyguard to get rid of Albert. Albert refuses to give him the formula but Richard has a sample and knows that other scientists will be able to retrace the process. However Albert gives him a warning; he may be able to derive the formula but nature will always win and he must always remember the circle of life. This warning will later haunt Richard as his perfect scheme of eternal life is suddenly threatened by a virus which his drug ‘longevity’ cannot cure. It seems that the unbeatable cure may be under threat; meanwhile there is an uprising from the Surpluses and their supporters who call themselves, The Underground. As people have chosen to live forever they give up the right to have children and any children born to those taking ‘longevity’ are taken to ‘Surplus Halls’ and subjected to cruel treatment and slavery, later they are secretly sent to a Pincent Laboratory, their bodies used for experiments and to create the new drug longevity plus.  Such a fate happened to Sheila once after her friend Anna was released by Peter the surplus son of a former mistress of the Surplus Hall Margaret Pincent. Margaret was never told that Peter was her son, he was a surplus and so quietly smuggled away from his house by his father. Now we see Margaret in prison with a death sentence for murdering her husband after she found out what he had done to their child. Anna and Peter live happily together with Anna’s baby brother and their own child. Sheila too had a happy ending, as she was saved by         Margaret’s other son and Peters brother. They both now work under Pip, leader of the Underground and fight against longevity and all it stands for, but Sheila had always been determined that she was not a surplus, that her parents had wanted her and not chosen longevity and now she wants to find them, but Pip knows this is a terrible idea. Meanwhile, Peter and Anna live happily together, far away from the problems of the real world, with Anna’s little brother and their own child. But Peter is becoming restless and knows that the resistance is struggling, as Pincent, terrified by the virus which threatens his legacy locks down on rebels with further vigilance. As people begin to grow suspicious of their neighbours seeming ill then mysteriously disappearing late at night, and more children are taken to surplus halls every day, Richard Pincent’s world seems to be crumbling around him. There is only one course he must take, he must find the original formula and understand what Albert meant when he said the ‘circle or life’. Otherwise the whole of Britain could die.

Title: Billy & Girl

Author: Deborah Levy

ISBN: 978-1-4088-4068-9

Price: £7.99

This is a story about a boy named Billy and his sister who everyone has always called ‘Girl’. It is a strange yet charming modern fairytale about two very different teenagers growing up. This is not a story for young children though, it is gritty and sad filled with the tragedy of real life. The two children live alone after their father died in a fire and their mother abandoned them. They are determined to find their lost mother and when they meet Louise, a mentally handicapped girl who works in a supermarket ‘Freezerworld’,      Girl feels that she can help them. She feels a connection to Louise and not only because Louise is girls real name. Girl gives her clothes and shoes trying to improve her style, and Louise is flattered by the interest of the two damaged, stylish teenagers and so tries to help them.  Raj is Billy’s sole confident and in love with Girl and he too becomes drawn into their plans and schemes, entrance by their strange lives. The story is at times witty and abstract and at others hard-hitting and painfully real and a criticism of modern society. As you disciver the full story behind the siblings past and their situation it becomes a thought provoking, heart breaking tale. I would definitely recommend this book; it is profound, comedic and serious all at the same time.