Gr 9 Up-"We are born in one day. We die in one day. We can change in one day. And we can fall in love in one day. Anything can happen in just one day." Allyson's life has been carefully planned out by her well-intentioned, but overbearing parents, even her graduation present of an educational tour of Europe. Everything that makes Allyson "Allyson"-from choosing her hobby of vintage-clock collecting to selecting what her college major will be-has been orchestrated by her mother. So when, after a chance encounter with a young man named Willem, the 18-year-old rebels and ditches a performance of the Royal Shakespeare Company to see "Guerilla Will," live Shakespeare performed in a London park, even her friend Melanie is surprised. Shedding her good-girl cloak and adopting the nickname "Lulu," Allyson decides to spend a day in Paris with Willem, an actor from the theater troupe. She surprises herself with her bold and adventuresome behavior during their time together, not the least of which includes having sex in an artist's squat. When Allyson wakes up the next day to find Willem gone, she returns home but can't shake him or the whole day from her memory. After a tumultuous freshman year, she saves up enough money to return to Europe and track down Willem to get closure. In the process of finding him, Allyson discovers herself, which may have been the point of the trip all along. Reading like a teen version of Elizabeth Gilbert's Eat, Pray, Love (Viking, 2006), this tale of romance and mystery engages readers and will cause them to examine their definitions of love and self-identity.— Nicole Knott, Watertown High School, CT

Call it an accident, serendipity, or a miracle, a single event comes to define a year in Allyson Healey's life. Straitlaced Allyson finds her postgraduation trip to Europe ("Teen Tours!") underwhelming until she makes the uncharacteristic decision to follow Willem, an actor in a "Guerilla Will" performance of Twelfth Night, to Paris for a single day. Before you start thinking this is a teen version of Before Sunrise (and the first third kind of is), Willem seemingly up and disappears after a one-night stand. What follows is a tumultuous freshman year for Allyson, filled with what-ifs, severe depression, and, finally, strength as she decides to seek the truth of what happened that day. Although some readers may feel frustrated with Allyson's descent into the depths of despair after a 24-hour affair, others e romantics ll get swept up in the story, which has it all: true love, Paris, Shakespeare, and, yes, the notion that "anything can happen in just one day." The believers won't want the story to end; luckily, Just One Year, told from Willem's point of view, is on the horizon. HIGH-DEMAND BACKSTORY: Forman's If I Stay (2009) and Where She Went (2011) were New York Times best-sellers. This is lighter fare from the popular author, and teens will be waiting for it.

At the end of a European tour for teens the summer before college, a rules-following, 18-year-old girl impulsively travels to Paris with a handsome Shakespearean actor, a one-day adventure that becomes the catalyst for big changes in the way she sees herself and her place in the world. Nicely integrating the work of Shakespeare as a thematic jumping-off place, author Forman explores "the line between true self and feigned self," the multiple personae, roles and identities that coexist in a single soul. After Allyson, the dutiful, emotionally muted daughter of a pulmonologist father and helicopter mother, finally breaks out and has a romantic adventure with aforesaid handsome actor, she wakes up alone. She feels betrayed and played, precipitating a hard-to-buy psychological crisis. Once in college, Allyson finds herself unengaged by the pre-med curriculum her parents designed. Although she feels trapped by their expectations, with the support of classmate Dee (who tiptoes through various identities and roles himself) Allyson begins the business of figuring out who she is and what she wants. As she blossoms and emerges from her tedious depression, the novel becomes absorbing, and readers will find themselves rooting for Allyson's more autonomous and interesting self. An overlong coming-of-age novel that takes forever to get going but soars at the finish. (Fiction. 14 & up)