REVIEW: One Day in December by Josie Silver

A huge thank you to Crown Publishing for the Advanced Copy via Netgalley!

I found out about this book while I was scrolling through NetGalley. The book reminded me of a mix of Love, Rosie and One Day. As you may have noticed, I am a sucker for anything in the romantic genre. I’ll be honest, going into the book, I thought I had the plot figured out. Often, books in this genre are on the predictable side. Instead, I found One Day in December was a well executed, genre defying, just plain-old-good book.

I love Laurie. She is imperfect, but she tries her best in all areas of her life. What I really love about her is her level of self-reflection and the value she puts on her relationship with Sarah. Laurie spent the better part of a year pining and obsessing over the man she saw at a bus stop and when he resurfaced as Sarah’s new boyfriend, she didn’t do the predictable thing and try to steal him away. Instead, she did the realistic thing and repressed the hell out of her feelings and valued her friendship with Sarah above everything else. Throughout the book the focus of the book wasn’t only on the one between Jack and Laurie, but also on the one between Laurie and Sarah. The amount of development of the secondary characters was spectacular, something that is rare in this genre.
One Day in December is told from the point of view of both Jack and Laurie. Reading their story from both points of view really added to the depth of it all. You see them both struggle to balance their initial attraction with their precarious situation with Jack as Sarah’s boyfriend. Without going into too many details, you get to see both Jack and Laurie try to suppress their chemistry and do the right thing by Laurie and the rest of the people in their lives. It’s complex, it’s authentic, and it’s well done will-they-won’t-they story.

I really can’t recommend One Day in December highly enough. The characters were deep and complex and real. There were emotional and real consequences for their actions. I delighted in watching them grow and evolve as people throughout the years the book follows them. The plot rarely dragged. This book was a delight cover to cover and I can’t wait to read more of Josie Silver’s books.