Monday, September 9, 2024

The Seven Year Slip

Title: The Seven Year Slip
Author: Ashley Poston
Published: June 27, 2023 by Berkley
Format: Paperback, 352 Pages
Genre: Women's Fiction

First Sentence: “This apartment is magical,” Aunt Analea once said, sitting in her wingback chair the color of robin’s egg, her hair twisted up with a silver dagger hairpin.

Blurb: Sometimes, the worst day of your life happens, and you have to figure out how to live after it.

So Clementine forms a plan to keep her heart safe: work hard, find someone decent to love, and try to remember to chase the moon. The last one is silly and obviously metaphorical, but her aunt always told her that you needed at least one big dream to keep going. And for the last year, that plan has gone off without a hitch. Mostly. The love part is hard because she doesn’t want to get too close to anyone—she isn’t sure her heart can take it.

And then she finds a strange man standing in the kitchen of her late aunt’s apartment. A man with kind eyes and a Southern drawl and a taste for lemon pies. The kind of man that, before it all, she would’ve fallen head-over-heels for. And she might again.

Except, he exists in the past. Seven years ago, to be exact. And she, quite literally, lives seven years in his future.

Her aunt always said the apartment was a pinch in time, a place where moments blended together like watercolors. And Clementine knows that if she lets her heart fall, she’ll be doomed.

After all, love is never a matter of time—but a matter of timing.

My Opinion: I almost gave up on this book. It began slowly and failed to capture my interest. About a third of the way through, I questioned if the issue was my reading pace. Perhaps I was reading too slowly. I decided to speed up, found my rhythm, and then I couldn’t put it down.

There are moments that take your breath away and bring tears when you realize that the seemingly insignificant details were essential to the story. As these elements came together, I bonded with the characters and their tales of being out of sync with time.

Time travel isn’t for everyone; I’ve said that many times. However, this book goes beyond the notion of who will be waiting on the other side of the door. It delves into grief, longing, waiting, acceptance, tears, anger, and ultimately understanding that there is a process, a time and place, that we must all navigate, even if it’s through reading a book that resonates deeply at the right moment.

Will this book appeal to everyone? No, not to the person they are at the moment they read it, but perhaps later, or they may have already missed their time. For the person in the right place and time, it will evoke smiles, tears, and a profound exhale as they wonder if their person is still searching for them.

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