One Day in December: A Novel,

by Josie Silver

Publication: Broadway Books; October 16, 2018

One Day About the book:

Two people. Ten chances. One unforgettable love story.

Laurie is pretty sure love at first sight doesn’t exist anywhere but the movies. But then, through a misted-up bus window one snowy December day, she sees a man who she knows instantly is the one. Their eyes meet, there’s a moment of pure magic…and then her bus drives away.

Certain they’re fated to find each other again, Laurie spends a year scanning every bus stop and cafe in London for him. But she doesn’t find him, not when it matters anyway. Instead they “reunite” at a Christmas party, when her best friend Sarah giddily introduces her new boyfriend to Laurie. It’s Jack, the man from the bus. It would be.

What follows for Laurie, Sarah and Jack is ten years of friendship, heartbreak, missed opportunities, roads not taken, and destinies reconsidered. One Day in December is a joyous, heartwarming and immensely moving love story to escape into and a reminder that fate takes inexplicable turns along the route to happiness.

My Review

I am so happy to bring you my review of Josie Silver’s debut novel, One Day in December! When I read the description of this one I knew I would love it and it completely exceeded my expectations. As explained in the blurb, Laurie is riding along the bus one evening after work, looks down from the bus at a stop, and sees the “man of her dreams.” The man sees her also and looks ready to try and hop onto the bus when it pulls away. After a year of hoping to run into this man again, she finally does. Unfortunately, the “man of her dreams” is on the arm of her best friend Sarah and is the new boyfriend Sarah has been raving about. From there, the author takes us through various stages of Sarah and Jack’s relationship, Sarah and Laurie’s friendship, as well as, other relationships that develop throughout their lives over the following years.

First of all – Laurie and Sarah. I want to be friends with them both, drink wine with them, and eat Sarah’s amazing sounding sandwiches. Besides being amazing friends to one another, they both just seemed extremely relatable. Although best friends, they had many differences, flaws, faults, and strengths that truly set them apart. Their major flaw, however, ended up being the inability to truly and honestly communicate when necessary and giving the strength of their friendship too much power. All friends fight eventually, but I feel as if Sarah and Laurie thought themselves unbreakable, which made any disappointment detrimental. And I think it wasn’t until the last 1/4 or so of the novel until Sarah truly opened her eyes and truly saw Laurie.

I loved Jack just as much as Laurie and Sarah – but not the entire time. Like anyone he had flaws, but what I loved about Jack was his own inner dialogue when he would start saying ridiculous or offensive things to people. He knew he was talking like an idiot, yet couldn’t stop himself. His self-depricating humor saved him with me several times, but as a whole, I just appreciated what a flawed character he was in general. From his “not obvious” good looks to his, at times, poor social skills, Jack was just Jack from beginning to end and that, I loved.

Initially, I was crazy about Oscar, but at some point, Laurie makes a comment about Oscar still being the same person that he was when she met him, and I adamantly disagree with that statement. I don’t want to give any spoilers, but I did not think that the Oscar in Thailand was anything like the Oscar towards the end. Or maybe it was sort of like Laurie said about him trying on different lives for a while…

I’m already looking over this review thinking that it sounds odd, but I’m not sure how to review this without giving spoilers while still expressing my thoughts! To summarize things, I fell in love with this book, was completely sucked in from the first page, and was sad to see it end. Josie Silver blended the perfect amount of realism with dreamy “what-ifs,” she created and developed characters that were fabulous and flawed all at once – much like us real people, and above all, she wrote about a kind of love that withstands numerous obstacles, years, people, and living in different parts of the world. I wish I knew what happened next after the end of the novel, but for now, I’m just extremely happy to have read it. Kudos to Josie Silver and I cannot wait to read what she releases next.

P.S. – this should be a movie!!!

*Many thanks to NetGalley and Broadway books for providing this review copy in exchange for my honest opinion.