Shakespeare is a Half-God

I can be very personally involved with some fictional books, and Gayle Forman's Just One Day is one of the most remarkable books I've known. It has so many links to my side of life that I've been sharing in this blog; the one that I don't let out every so often. Most of you must have realized how different the me who's writing the whole posts in the blog and the me in real, everyday life. I can say that this book touches the me whose head is in the clouds and sometimes too far from the ground.

The premise alone was exactly the way I'd imagined true romance should started. It was actually my friend's idea when we had this light conversation of a dream romance (with mine being posted previously here). The idea was to travel somewhere in England and meet a striking stranger who happens to be very nice and spontaneous, so much that he asked the girl to get lost somewhere she's never been to. And while they're there, he'd ask her to get even more lost than they already are. It just adds to my pleasure that the guy in this book, Willem, is a carefree Dutch who act in Shakespearian plays, speaks fluent French, and happens to be a well-traveled person who can talk about love just as deep as he talks about his art. Not to mention how it is set mostly in Paris and Amsterdam; the two places I would like call home someday, because they're just that enchanting. And even better: Stratford-upon-Avon, the place Shakespeare would like to call home; and London. And you know how I feel about that city. 

Apart from that very personal experience, what makes me like this book so much is how I could go from disliking the heroine of the story, Allyson, to admiring her since the last quarter of the book. I can see how she, through what made her seem so lost as a person, could actually find who she is and finally deciding her life. I'm pretty sure each one of us had thought, at least for once, to change our vocations. To take a road that we're so wanting to take but didn't, because it's not considered good by people around us. But sometimes the way to know what we shouldn't do is by doing what we're not supposed to do. It may be easier to be said than done, but that alone is a sign that our heroine in the book is a girl with such determination to finally decide for her own life, and I guess in some ways, that's the kind of person we should look up to.