Laurie is pretty sure love at first sight doesn’t exist anywhere but the movies. But then, through a misted-up bus window one snowy December day, she sees a man who she knows instantly is the one. Their eyes meet, there’s a moment of pure magic…and then her bus drives away.
Certain they’re fated to find each other again, Laurie spends a year scanning every bus stop and cafe in London for him. But she doesn’t find him, not when it matters anyway. Instead they “reunite” at a Christmas party, when her best friend Sarah giddily introduces her new boyfriend to Laurie. It’s Jack, the man from the bus. It would be.
What follows for Laurie, Sarah and Jack is ten years of friendship, heartbreak, missed opportunities, roads not taken, and destinies reconsidered. One Day in December is a joyous, heartwarming and immensely moving love story to escape into and a reminder that fate takes inexplicable turns along the route to happiness.
Rating: 3/5
I really wanted to like this more! I’ve been seeing it pop up a lot on Bookstagram and I wanted a light, cute read, so this was seemingly the perfect choice for a chilly winter weekend. The book goes by quick, and while the concept still is really cute to me, the characters and constant POV flip-flopping could’ve been better.
My big gripe with the main characters: Laurie is pretty generic and bland, Jack came off as an asshole more often than not (he’s basically only nice to Laurie), and Oscar, Laurie’s husband, is actually a decent human being except you’d never see his type (finance bro) with Laurie’s type (soft and sensitive writer) in real life. Their relationship didn’t make much sense to me. The only character I did like was Sarah – a redheaded bombshell who’s super fun and spirited, fiercely loyal to Laurie, and wears her heart on her sleeve.
The perspective switching was ok at first, but sometimes there are multiple POVs within a single chapter, or a POV entry is just one paragraph long, or a crucial moment is from the POV of a secondary character instead of the main one (so annoying! Authors shouldn’t shy away from writing emotions), so the book is kind of organizationally all over the place. And since the story spans an ambitious ten years, it goes at a fast pace – one chapter we’re following Laurie to Thailand in October 2012, and the next moment she’s living with her parents in the UK in June 2013.
Finally, the book ends pretty suddenly. Laurie and Jack finally end up together 10 years after they first spotted each other, and that’s where the book just stops. You don’t get to see how they are as a couple at all.
Overall an alright book. Not quite the fluffy weekend read I was looking for, but you could definitely do worse.
Mossflower Cove 
I’ve definitely heard some mixed reviews about this novel too, but I’m still thinking I’ll cave and get to reading it this coming December :’)
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I think I would’ve loved it if I’d read it just two months sooner – it’s such a cute holiday read!
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Yeah I felt this was okay, but not amazing. Great review!
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Your comment somehow slipped by me, but thank you!
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