You can also read this review on my blog 
 In short: Just One Day resonated SO deeply with me that my love for Gayle Forman has reached a whole new level. 
 I loved If I Stay and Where She Went by Gayle Forman. I wasn't BLOWN AWAY by them like some people are, but I really did love Gayle Forman's beautiful prose and expert handling of the emotionally intense subject matter. Now, Just One Day on the other hand - WOAH. Just One Day resonated SO deeply with me that at times it was like Gayle was plucking thoughts and feelings that I've had in my life right from my head and putting them down in words, albeit much more eloquently and meaningfully than I could ever manage to in my head. I never quite felt that way with If I Stay, as much as I did love it. 
 It wasn't immediate love when I first began Just One Day. Of course I fell right into Gayle Forman's effortless writing and genuine characters right away, but it wasn't until I was most of the way through the book that I realized where the story and character arcs were going and how much it meant to me that Gayle was taking the route much less traveled. I had thought Just One Day was going to be another book about a girl "finding herself" in Europe with the help of a cute boy. But in reality, that cute boy is MIA for the rest of the book after the beginning. And then the girl does something remarkable: she "finds herself" on her own/with help from some good friends and WITHOUT the help of the cute boy, and she realizes she's made of tougher stuff. 
 I wasn't as in love with Just One Year as I was with Just One Day just simply because Willem's story wasn't as relatable to me as Allyson's. But the final moment of Just One Year got me GOOD because I can never resist a good coming-full-circle ending and this one was just perfection. I was already appreciative of Gayle Forman's writing from If I Stay, but Just One Day has taken me to a whole new level of LOVE for this woman and her profoundly meaningful stories. Just so much love.