I’m a little late to the game on this book– but it was SO worth the wait.
One Day in December by Josie Silver was one of Reese Witherspoon’s book club picks so you know I had to read it. Quick synopsis: Girl see boy on the bus. Girl and boy make eye contact. Bus drives off. Girl falls in love with said boy (in her mind). Turns out boy starts dating her best friend. What ensues is a friendship of sorts between Laurie (love sick girl), Jack (boy from the bus) & Sarah (friend now dating the boy from the bus). Their ten year long friendship goes through the typical ups & downs of recent college graduates trying to make it through their twenties in the real world. Heartbreak, dead end jobs, divorce & even death. And through it all Sarah never knows that Jack is actually Laurie’s long lost love from the bus.
A main underlying theme in this book was fate. Being in the right place at the right time. I fully believe in fate & that things totally happen for a reason. If something is meant to be, then things will fall into place- when they are meant to fall into place. Timing is everything. I think a lot of people, especially in their 20’s, rush into things just because they are trying to keep up with what society says the “norm” is.
Go to college, find your soulmate, get a good job, get married, have a child- and do this all before you turn 30.
The characters in this book really struggled with this & struggled with finding their place in the world. You sometimes don’t find your dream job right out of college. You sometimes don’t meet your soulmate early on. And getting married then having a baby sometimes doesn’t happen in that order. And that’s ok. That is actually MORE THAN OK. I think once the characters in this book realized that just living their life on their own terms was more important than sticking to society’s unrealistic timeline- that is when their lives truly began. That is when fate stepped in & took over. Everyone was finally ready for what was to come.
And I loved the happy ending. I won’t give too much away- but everything worked out in the end for everyone. I sometimes like books like that. It doesn’t always need to be heartbreak & sad stories. There’s so much unhappiness & injustice going on in today’s world that getting to escape in book with a happy ending is just what I need. Happy endings do exist & are real. Maybe if we all started believing in that- the world would be a little less broken.
