Title: Seven Days of You
Author: Cecilia Vinesse
Publication Date: Mar. 7, 2017
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Sophia has seven days left in Tokyo before she moves back to the States. Seven days to say good-bye to the electric city, her wild best friend, and the boy she’s harbored a semi-secret crush on for years. Seven perfect days…until Jamie Foster-Collins moves back to Japan and ruins everything.
Jamie and Sophia have a history of heartbreak, and the last thing Sophia wants is for him to steal her leaving thunder with his stupid arriving thunder. Yet as the week counts down, the relationships she thought were stable begin to explode around her. And Jamie is the one who helps her pick up the pieces. Sophia is forced to admit she may have misjudged Jamie, but can their seven short days of Tokyo adventures end in anything but good-bye?
I’m Cecilia Vinesse, and I’m the author of two books about teenagers who wander cities and fall in love: Seven Days of You and the forthcoming The Summer of Us, which will be available in June 2018.
I was born in France, raised between Japan and South Carolina, and then I moved to New York City to attend Barnard College and, eventually, work in children’s book publishing. After that, I got a job in a cold, snowy city in northern Japan and, from there, headed to Scotland where I earned my master’s degree in creative writing at the University of St Andrews.
Now, I live in a small Edwardian house in England where I spend most of my time writing in my sky-blue office, daydreaming in libraries, and holding late-night marathons of Buffy the Vampire Slayer.
A pug named Malfi and a Renaissancist named Rachel are my favorite things in the world. And also books. I should probably mention the books again.
Oh, this story. I had such hopes for this one. Unfortunately, I was a tad-bit letdown.
In the interest of being fair, I don’t believe Ms. Vinesse is a bad author. In fact, I’d say her writing is great. It’s just her characters that I couldn’t get on board with. And there were certain aspects of the story I enjoyed; i.e. the Japan factor. You can plainly tell from the story that the author knows her stuff when it comes to this area of the world. And, I would probably love to hear more about her experiences there.
However, when it came down to the characters of Seven Days of You, I just wasn’t into it. I found them all to be a little flat and one-dimensional. The main character, in particular, seemed to me a kind of one-trick pony– a lot of emotions and little knowledge in the way to handle said emotions.
But, what I did enjoy, besides hearing about Japan, was the sisterly relationship between Sophia and Alison. That relationship, the fact that I actually really enjoyed Alison’s character, and the writing by Ms. Vinesse is what made this story a 3/5 for me. I would really love to try another story from this author.
