And the worst came when the Paris leg of the trip had to be cancelled, because of a transport strike.Īllyson’s best friend, Melanie, is having a grand old time and taking full advantage of the teen tour guide’s lack of nighttime supervision. The Trevi Fountain was crowded, there was a McDonald's at the base of the Spanish Steps and so far this whole experience has been more ‘European Vacation’ than ‘Roman Holiday’. But this adventure is not all it’s cracked up to be, at least not for Allyson. That’s what the brochure said, and no doubt what her parents intended when they gave her a European ‘teen tour’ package holiday as part of her graduation present. Over the next year, Allyson embarks on a journey to come to terms with the narrow confines of her life, and through Shakespeare, travel, and a quest for her almost-true-love, to break free of those confines.Īllyson Healey should be having the time of her life. After just one day together, that spark bursts into a flame, or so it seems to Allyson, until the following morning, when she wakes up after a whirlwind day in Paris to discover that Willem has left. Willem, though, has a lot of explaining to do, and the unanswered questions will whet readers’ appetites for the promised companion novel.When sheltered American good girl Allyson 'LuLu' Healey first meets laid-back Dutch actor Willem De Ruiter at an underground performance of Twelfth Night in England, there’s an undeniable spark. Eventually, she realizes that her return to Paris is not a search for Willem so much as it is a search for herself, and therein lies the real romance. Armchair travelers and romance fans suffering under the oppressive regimes of helicopter parents, or those merely plagued by existential boredom, will definitely relate to Allyson’s quest as she struggles to replace Hamlet’s question of “to be or not to be” with her more urgent one of “how to be.” Supported by a theatrical friend whom she meets in a Shakespeare class, she contemplates how the various roles we play relate to who we ultimately become. Her glimpse of what she could be has left her seriously depressed, however, and after a disastrous first semester in college, she decides that she has to make some changes, which include going back to Paris to try to track Willem down and find out what happened. Sadly, after amazing sex with Willem in an empty art squat, she awakens to find him gone and scurries back to her role as passive good girl. On a whim, she and Willem go to Paris for one perfect day, during which she discovers another side to herself and falls in love. Even Allyson’s post-graduation trip to Europe is a crushing disappointment until her longtime best friend encourages her to go off the tour, whereupon Allyson meets Willem, an enigmatic Dutch Shakespearean actor. Allyson is the only child of a mother who compensates for her own disappointments by over-scheduling and micromanaging every aspect of Allyson’s life.

Just one day by gayle forman