Title: A Year to the Day
Author: Robin Benway
Publication: June 21, 2022
Publisher: Harper Teen
Genre: Teen, YA Fiction
Pages: 342
SYNOPSIS: (From Goodreads)
It’s been a year—a year of missing Nina. A year of milestones—holidays, birthdays, everything without her.
Leo feels like she should remember what happened that night. But all she knows is that she left the party and got into a car with Nina and Nina’s boyfriend, East.
East, who once promised Nina he’d watch out for her younger sister. East, who has been trying to keep that promise every day since. But East won’t give Leo the one thing she wants—the one thing she needs. He won’t tell her anything about the accident. He won’t talk about that night at all.
As the days tumble one into the next, Leo’s story comes together while her world falls apart. The only constant is the one person who can help her bear the enormous weight of her love for Nina—and East might be carrying too heavy a load of his own.
REVIEW:
**A copy of this book was provided by the publisher via NetGalley in exchange for an honest review.**
I had never read a book by Robin Benway before, but I had heard a lot of good things. I knew I wanted to check out her work, so when I saw A Year to the Day I figured now was as good a time as any.
After reading the synopsis, I was expecting a book that slowly filled in blanks of why Leo couldn’t remember things and how that story transpired. The phrase, “As the days tumble one into the next” I found to be very deceiving from the description of the book. Why, you ask? The book goes backwards. The days don’t tumble one into the next. You start a year to the day from the accident and the story works backwards. You are reading dates as they go back to the day of. While this would have been fine, I was a little perturbed because it made it seem like I was reading a very confusing, broken story. Each time the story jumped back, I had to quickly figure out where in this timeline I was (the dates were given) and how it fit into what had already happened. Not sure I am a fan of this style of writing.
With that being said, I also was a little let down by the ending of the book. I expected some huge reveal, and while there is a reveal, it really didn’t make me gasp or be shocked. It didn’t change anything in the story. No one ever knew, at least up to where the book started a year later, and I was let down by that. The story wasn’t a happy one at all, although there were some small happy moments. It was a bit depressing, which I can almost let go because of the storyline. It is obviously not a happy moment for these characters. I was just let down by this ending and was hoping for some big shock to get me more excited for the book.
With that being said, had this story been flipped, I probably would have liked it a lot more. Little memories being revealed throughout or even a back and forth between East’s and Leo’s point of views could have made it more exciting. I wanted to like it more.
Again, I have heard a lot of really good things about Robin Benway’s books so I fully intend to check out more. This one just didn’t click with me, but it may with you. I encourage everyone to pick it up and check it out and let me know if your thoughts differed from mine.
