Where do you fall: is luck predetermined or in your own hands? Sophie Cousens explores this concept in meaty romcom This Time Next Year. Think of this books as a cross between Sliding Doors and Sleepless in Seattle set in England. This was a fun book that reads fast and is perfect if you’re in a slump or if you ever got in a rut of saying ‘why does this always happen to me?’ I love a book that explores perspective in life! Throw in a little self-development and a romance and I’m all in!
But First
Please tell me I am not the only one who has to slow my reading down a few levels when a novel takes place in England. (Well, anyplace else besides the US, but I feel like I have a lot of UK-ish books breezin’ passed my eyeballs…) Here is a little help for the next time you read a book based across the pond.
Set Me Up
Minnie Cooper (yes, her real name. Eeks!) and Quinn Hamilton have the same birthday of New Year’s Day and don’t know each other yet. Minnie does her best to run the other direction on New Year’s Eve because nothing good ever happens to her that day or on her birthday. Think: someone puking on her at a New Year’s Eve bash after she lost her winter coat with her house keys in it. Girlfriend just doesn’t have luck on her side. Or so she tells herself. Quinn Hamilton, however, outwardly has had incredible luck and has wanted for nothing.
So when the two run into each other on New Year’s Day and discover their shared birthday, they continue to chat and find themselves more at ease with this stranger than most anyone in their circles. Born minutes apart by mothers who actually labored together at the same hospital, it seems like Minnie and Cooper might make for a good match.
I Smell Trouble
Minnie hasn’t had it easy in life. Her business is struggling. Her boyfriend sucks (like, total sloth). She’s getting kicked out of her apartment. Her parents are of no mental support. I really felt for this gal.
Minnie has decided her lot in life. She is unlucky, bad things happen to her, she is doomed. (Side note: this kind of attitude is really hard for me to be around in real life, so to read about it was really challenging. The author writes this in such a way where it’s almost comical but not in a laughing-at-someone-after-they-slipped-and-fell kind of way.)
Quinn might be easy on the eyes and have a glamourous life, but things are not as they appear. His mom is struggling. She is extremely codependent on Quinn which is giving Quinn a total mindfu**. Minnie has labeled him extremely lucky in everything – wealth, a doting mother, luxury digs, a great job, a Barbie-esque girlfriend and so on.
The beauty in this story is nothing is ever as it seems on the surface. We make up these stories about people we do and don’t know. We make so many assumptions. We put other people on pedestals and are so willing to knock down our own hiccup/situation/younameit. And we are so very wrong about a lot of it.
Some Fave Quotes
- “Minnie, I do believe behind that pretty face of yours you are hiding an inner geek.”
- “Greg was a jigsaw piece she’d been trying to make fit and the effort of forcing it felt like wearing a corset, pressuring her to conform to its shape.”
- “Don’t cry about something you wouldn’t cry about in five years’ time.”
- “You see a big house like this, Minnie, and you think people got it all. Sometimes it’s like too much icing on a cake – it’s covering over a crumby base that’s cracked down the middle.”
- “Your light also made me see all these shadows in my own life, shadows I finally realized I had to deal with.”
My Vote
Well, my vote, is very much ‘you make your own luck.’ But days after I wrapped up this book, I’m still thinking about it. This Time Next Year really makes you think about the opportunities, people, friendships, chances and experiences that have come your way and I love it!