Review: ONE DAY IN DECEMBER by Josie Silver

Rating: 5/5 stars

I walked by this book literally every day for a week as it sat on the shelf in the bookstore where I work, and I contemplated buying it multiple times but never did. I picked it up almost every day and read the back-cover synopsis and blurbs many times each, but for some reason, I just never bought myself a copy. I knew I’d be getting lots of books for Christmas anyway, and I didn’t need to add one more.

Well, I caved. I bought the book the day after Christmas, started reading it within twenty minutes of getting off of work, and fell in love with the writing style and Laurie’s personality from the very first page.

One Day in December at first appears to be a love story told over ten years’ time as our characters meet for the first time and then meet many times again over the years in both expected and unexpected ways. But the story is much more than that, and I was pleasantly surprised to discover that. It’s a lighthearted read that was perfect for the holiday season, but it still covered some more serious topics along the way.

The story is told from both Laurie’s and Jack’s perspectives over the course of a decade. One night they see each other at a bus stop, Laurie on the bus and Jack outside on the bench. Ever since their eyes met each other, a lifelong connection was made. Just as Jack is about to get on the bus, it drives away, Laurie still inside looking after him. She spends the next year searching all over town for him, in bars, at bus stops, in shops, but to no avail. Then the following Christmas, her best friend Sarah introduces Laurie to her new boyfriend. Who happens to be Jack from the bus stop.

This story goes a lot deeper than the initial description would make you think. Laurie deals with heartache in many ways, not just romantically. This book might be a love story on the surface but it’s also about friendship and familial relationships and following your dreams and how people and situations change over the years and how what you once wanted and worked so hard for might not be what’s right for you anymore. It’s about taking chances and making choices and living with the consequences.

At the beginning of each year, Laurie writes out her New Year’s resolutions, and I loved seeing how they unfolded throughout the year and helped to shape both her and the new resolutions she made the following year.

I loved seeing the progression of the characters over the years as far as their jobs, their maturity, their relationships, and their personalities. I really felt like I was growing with them. And then when they mentioned fond memories, I could look back and remember reading about those things happening earlier in the book. I don’t know if I’ve ever read a book that takes place over such a long time period following the same characters, but Josie Silver does an excellent job executing a story in this manner.

Overall, I would definitely recommend One Day in December if you are looking for an adorable, mostly clean holiday romance story that reads like a Hallmark movie turned into a book. It was exactly what I needed right now and it made me so happy to read about these characters and find parallels between their lives and my own life. This is a book I could see myself rereading during many Christmases to come. 

“Sometimes you just meet the right person at the wrong time . . . and then you spend every day afterward wishing that time could be rearranged.”