Een jaar met jou in Around the Year in 52 Books

Feb 16, 2023 Blaine rated it it was amazing · review of another edition

Shelves: 2023, from-library

The hardest thing is love, with no expiration date, no qualifiers, no safety net. Love that demands acceptance of all things I cannot change. Love that doesn't follow a plan.
…
Maybe, once you come to realize that there are no answers, you learn to live with the questions.

Ella Durran has dreamed of winning a Rhodes Scholarship and spending a year studying at Oxford University since she was thirteen. And against all odds, she wins one, but before she’s even made it through customs, she gets offered

The hardest thing is love, with no expiration date, no qualifiers, no safety net. Love that demands acceptance of all things I cannot change. Love that doesn't follow a plan.
…
Maybe, once you come to realize that there are no answers, you learn to live with the questions.

Ella Durran has dreamed of winning a Rhodes Scholarship and spending a year studying at Oxford University since she was thirteen. And against all odds, she wins one, but before she’s even made it through customs, she gets offered a position as the Education policy consultant on a presidential campaign. She negotiates a compromise that she’ll work remotely, always putting the job ahead of coursework, and that she’ll come back to DC at the end of the school year. So once again, Ella’s got it all figured out. That is, until she has her first class and discovers it’s being taught by Jamie Davenport, the “posh prat” who spilled food all over her and argued with her the previous day. But he proves to be much more attractive than he first seemed, and when Ella starts to fall for him, she has some unexpected decisions to make about her future.

I sought out My Oxford Year after reading Julia Whelan’s extraordinary sophomore novel, Thank You for Listening. And the first half of it was exactly what I expected. The American struggling to understand the accents and customs abroad. A loving, immersive description of Oxford. A fun, tight knit circle of friends in Maggie and Tom and Charlie. The clever banter between two headstrong, intelligent people slowly falling for each other. Ms. Whelan has a real talent for writing the uncertainty in relationships, when you’re never quite sure how you feel or where you stand. Throw in some sexy time, and you’ve got the makings of a solid rom-com.

But the second half of My Oxford Year … takes a turn. Sure, Ella is carrying some trauma from her father dying when she was younger, and Jamie has some family tragedy as well. But that seems at first to be merely texture and depth in their relationship. Until it doesn’t. Until the reader and Ella learn what’s really going on with Jamie, and she has to choose between what she’s always wanted and what she really wants. It’s emotional and powerful and did I say emotional?

My Oxford Year is a beautiful story, heartwarming and heartbreaking in equal measure. It’s about life, and how life gets in the way. Highly recommended, especially the audiobook, performed brilliantly by Ms. Whalen herself. 4.5 stars rounded up to 5. ...more

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