Read Like My High School Journal, Except I Never Made It Out of Texas...Let Alone to Tokyo

Title: Seven Days of You
Author: Cecilia Vinesse
Series: stand-alone
Publisher: Little, Brown Books for Young Readers
Publication Date: March 7, 2017
Source: ARC received from publisher
Purchase: Amazon | Barnes & Noble

Sophia has seven days left in Tokyo before she moves back to the States. Seven days to say good-bye to the electric city, her wild best friend, and the boy she’s harbored a semi-secret crush on for years. Seven perfect days…until Jamie Foster-Collins moves back to Japan and ruins everything.

Jamie and Sophia have a history of heartbreak, and the last thing Sophia wants is for him to steal her leaving thunder with his stupid arriving thunder. Yet as the week counts down, the relationships she thought were stable begin to explode around her. And Jamie is the one who helps her pick up the pieces. Sophia is forced to admit she may have misjudged Jamie, but can their seven short days of Tokyo adventures end in anything but good-bye?

I really wanted to like this book. I was looking forward to reading it so much that I read it a whole four months early. And yet, it just wasn't what I had been hoping for.

Seven Days of You read like my high school journal. Literally. And that makes sense when you think about the characters and the point at which they are in their lives. But it made me cringe...a lot. I think it was more the writing style that I was uncomfortable with than the characters' actions. It was a lot of awkward dialogue and emphatic statements.

The writing felt especially sparse when it came to depicting Tokyo. I've never been there but I wanted to feel like I had through the pages of this book...and I just didn't. Naming things left and right does not put you in a particular place, especially when the descriptions just aren't enough for you to visualize the setting. Tokyo felt like more of a backdrop when I wanted the city to act almost as another character.

Also disappointing was the fact that based on the summary, I was expecting an epic hate-to-love romance, a real whirlwind love affair since it occurs in the span of a week. What I got instead was a saccharine-sweet romance based on a ton of misunderstandings. It wasn't terrible because the love interest was nerdy and super adorable, but I had been expecting some type of bad boy who really had to work at gaining Sophia's affections.

I did really appreciate the emphasis on family and where you call home...and who or what makes up home. At this pivotal point in Sophia's life, she doesn't know where or to whom she belongs with, and I liked seeing that explored in her relationships, as well, with everyone kind of questioning where they go from here.

But I think my biggest beef with this story is the fact that the author forgot the epilogue. I'm all for open endings with a big dose of hopefulness, but after pretty much pining for each other for three solid years only to reunite for a week, I was expecting more from the ending.

All in all, this was a light, fluffy story about love and friendship and family in a foreign setting and it was cute. It just wasn't make-everyone-you-know-read-it cute. It was the sort of novel that I couldn't put down, even as my husband was asking why I was growling at the book, if that tells you anything. :)

GIF it to me straight:

About the author:

I'm Cecilia Vinesse, and I wrote a book about saying good-bye to high school friends and staying out all night and the dizziness of falling in love and the deliciousness of ramen.

I was born in France but then moved to Japan. And then to the States. And then back to Japan. And then back to the States. When I was 18, I moved to New York where I was homesick for nearly seven years. After that, I got a job in a cold, snowy city in northern Japan and, from there, I headed to Scotland where I got my master's in creative writing and lived off tea, writer tears, and Hobnobs.

I still live in the U.K. and spend most of my time writing, reading, baking, and getting emotional over Tori Amos albums. Hobbies include pretending Buffy the Vampire Slayer is real, collecting a lipstick to match every Skittle flavor, and listening to a thousand podcasts a day.

A pup named Malfi and a Renaissancist named Rachel are my favorite things in the world. That, and books. I should probably mention the books again.

Find Cecilia:

Website | Twitter | Goodreads | Instagram | Tumblr

Labels: cecilia vinesse, contemporary, foreign setting, hachette, reviews, seven days of you