I didn’t read One Day in December when it initially came out, but after reading Josie Silver’s The Two Lives of Lydia Bird I immediately added it on to my next BOTM box. I absolutely loved Lydia Bird, and I really liked December too.


Laurie sees a man at a bus stop and feels a spark that can only be described as love. She spends an entire year searching for him, only to see him again and have him introduced as her best friend/roommate’s boyfriend, Jack. Over the next ten years, Laurie and Jack must find a way to coexist as platonic friends in a world where they feel fated to be together.


Like I mentioned, I really liked this book. But I really disliked Laurie. I went into this book with the assumption that this would be a time loop kind of story where she relived that one day in December over and over, but alas, that’s what I get for not reading synopses. I’d absolutely consider myself a romantic, but Laurie literally sees this guy (Jack) while she’s on a bus and he’s in a bus stop for mere minutes, and falls in love. She knows nothing about this guy. Then a strain falls over Laurie and her best friend Sarah’s relationship because Laurie’s obsessed with a guy she saw once that’s now dating her best friend. Wut? So it’s the plot that’s annoying. But taking that for what it is, the book is really good. It’s well written, Laurie and Jack are both well-developed characters, and I really enjoyed that it took place over ten years so you could really see that development.






I truly enjoyed this book, though not as much as I loved Lydia Bird. And while I consider both to be romance, these aren’t steamy romances. Instead they’re more literary romance. They’re often a lot sadder than they are happy, and while romance is a big theme and has a lot to do with the story, both books are case studies in their main characters. They allow you to get to really dive deep with the characters and how they handle curveballs in life. I would certainly read more from Josie Silver.




Goodreads rating: ★★★★☆