Plot:

*Trigger Warning: suicide*

Freya, age nineteen, was about to become the next hit singer. Claimed by her father that she was born singing, he told her to never stop. Even when he left her, along with her mother and oldest sister in New York, and went he went back to Ethiopia to create a new life for himself, Freya still sung. Now, with weeks away before her first CD is dropped, Freya lost her singing voice. Just in the middle of a simple song, like Happy Birthday, her throat just closes up. After a ton of doctor appointments, none of them are able to explain what is wrong with her. Taking a walk in a park, a group of bicycles made Freya lose her balance, falling over the bridge, she landed on someone who was about to change her life: Nathaniel.

Nathaniel, no he does not go by Nate, came to New York with one plan: to see his father. When he was younger, his father told Nathaniel that it would always be the two of them: “A fellowship of two” (39). A fake Heterochromia iridium (having two different color eyes) guy, Nathaniel was extremely close with his father, and only felt a slight twinge of sadness when his mother left, because she could not stand being married to a man child any longer. Thus, his grandmother moved in to take care of Nathaniel and his father. But after battling cancer for a few months lost and passed on. Which is why it being so important for Nathaniel to find his father in New York and unite the fellowship again. When a soon to be famous singer, who Nathaniel did not know of, lands on top of him, Nathaniel starts imagining a future he could not have seen before. When the person who saws Freya land of Nathaniel, the unlikely duo because a trio of unlikely friends all at a critical point of their life. As Harun helps Freya lift the knocked over Nathaniel off the ground, he too becomes a key part in what saves Nathaniel.

Harun does not have many regrets in his life, but his biggest one and most recent would be with James. James, his boyfriend for over a year, dumped Harun because he would not come out to his family. But how can he? When his brother married a white woman, his mother did not speak to him for six months, and now that they are on speaking turns, they have to deal with his wife disrespecting their culture. Harun was waiting at the park for James to come, even though he blocked Harun’s number, when he saw Freya fall. And as selfish is it is, is the reason Harun stuck around. Freya was James’s favorite singer, thus, if James saw Harun with Freya, he knew that he and Harun would be meant to be together. Together, the three of them use each other to overcome the challenges they are facing in their life. A bike being the reason why Freya lost her balance on the bridge, the ended up saving two of them from a life they did not want, and one from death itself.

Thoughts:

Some days’ blur together, but others stick out as a critical point in the history of your life, and it is those days that truly matter in the end. With Gayle Forman’s story, all happens in a single day. The morning where Freya falls onto Nathaniel, with Harun is witnessing it, to near midnight where Nathaniel hears Freya and Harun running towards him. Where some hate the “All-In-One-Day” style, some books, like this one, cannot work its magic if set out a timeline of a week or a month. Plus, it was not all in one day. With chapters’ section off called The Order of Loss, which has twelve parts, it gives background to our three characters to how they ended up in their situation, and what they have lost along the way. Yet, in the story Forman left the ending a little loose. With a predictable at ending, there are relationships that you can predict what happen, but not defined in ink of what actually goes down. Which sucks, because you can root for an ending that you do not know for sure happened, thus you still kind of hope it does. Overall, it is a nice short read, about that one-day magic that turns three strangers into the closest groups one has ever seen.