Wednesday 26 February 2020

*** REVIEW TOUR *** JUST ONE YEAR by Penelope Ward






JUST ONE YEAR IS LIVE!

From New York Times bestselling author Penelope Ward, comes a new standalone novel.



SYNOPSIS


The beginning of my sophomore year in college was off to a rough start.
On the first day of orientation, I had an altercation with an infuriating British dude in a campus bathroom.

(The ladies’ room was out of order. So, I used the men’s room. Don’t judge.)
I got home later that night and realized that the foreign student we were expecting to rent a room in my parents’ house was allergic to our cat.

So, the spare room went to someone else: Caleb—the British guy from the men’s room.
And so it began…my love-hate story with Caleb Yates. Or was it hate-love in that order?

The guy knew how to push every one of my buttons.
Sometimes I’d email him to express my aggravation and disdain.
He’d actually rewrite my own words and send them back to me.
That was the type of infuriating person Caleb was.
So frustrating.
And…
Sometimes incredibly funny and endearingly sweet.
And hot.

He eventually grew on me, and Caleb soon became one of my best friends that year.
Too bad he was headed back to England soon, so nothing could happen between us—for so many reasons.
I definitely couldn't fall in love with him, especially since all we had was just one year.

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Caleb Yates is an exchange student from England.  At twenty-two, Caleb is a little older than most students in his class, but circumstances at home required that he take a break in his studies.  Teagan Carroll is a super smart, nineteen-year-old who lives in the house where Caleb is boarding for his year in Boston.  In the beginning, these two are at each other like cats and dogs.  They rub each other the wrong way about everything, but mostly, it cycles back to their first meet on campus. (A funny moment that is very typical of Penelope’s writing skill.)  However, the more they get to know each other, a friendship blossoms that eventually becomes more.


There is so much to love about this story.  Just One Year is a slow-burn in the best way.  Caleb is a nice guy who wants to protect Teagan.  He knows his time in the U.S. is short, therefore he focuses more on building a friendship even though he knows Teagan wants the next step.  He worries that he will hurt her when he goes home.  

Teagan is a lovely character too.  She has a lot to offer, but like Caleb there is a lot of pain in her past that she needs to work through.  The friendship they have allows them to confide in one another and talk through their pain and family crisis in a way they never could in the past.  It only takes a couple pages to get sucked into these two and hope that they could find more.

I devoured the story ecstatic with the way the relationship is unfolding until we hit the seventy-five percent marker.  At this point is where I struggle as I do with many young adult stories.  One or both main characters act unexpectedly childish.  I did not expect that of Caleb, since he is more mature and thoughtful to this point.  I expect a conflict but give me a conflict keeping with the spirit of the character set up from the start.  Caleb’s actions don’t feel right to me.  Not some of the situations he get into, but his relationship with Teagan.  In fact, I ended up putting the book aside for a couple days and I don’t do that often.  

Regardless, lovers of YA will not have a problem at all.  Just One Year is an entertaining look at two delightful characters.  The story is told from Teagan’s point of view for the most part but chapters from Caleb’s point of view are sprinkled in too.  The ending is more than satisfying.  I recommend Just One Year to romance lovers, especially YA fans.  

3.5 STAMPS





BIO:
Penelope Ward is a New York Times, USA Today and #1 Wall Street Journal bestselling author of contemporary romance.

She grew up in Boston with five older brothers and spent most of her twenties as a television news anchor. Penelope resides in Rhode Island with her husband, son, and beautiful daughter with autism.
With over two million books sold, she is a 21-time New York Times bestseller and the author of over twenty novels. Her books have been translated into over a dozen languages and can be found in bookstores around the world.

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