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.
Getting book recommendations off Tiktok is a crapshoot. I’ve found some legitimately good books from fans on there, and I’ve also been lead to books I wouldn’t revisit with a gun to my head. And romance book recommendations on Tiktok? Pal, fuggadaboutit. I don’t shame other readers for what they like, of course, but so many of these romance tropes just aren’t for me; mafia romances, dark romances, stalker romances, overly-cheesy romance, super horny Christmas romances… So, I was already skeptical of The Seven Year Slip before starting it, especially because Ashley Poston’s first book, The Dead Romantics, was just “meh” for me, despite all of the rave reviews I’d seen online. I ultimately decided to give this a try because this one seemed more universally adored, and the writing was definitely not my issue with The Dead Romantics.
Out main character, Clementine, was something of an enigma to me in the beginning of the book. She’s well travelled, has great friends, an impressive publishing job, but she came across as so boring at first. As she meets her love interest, Iwan, and the story progresses, we slowly see her character open up through banter and the memories she recalls with her aunt. And as she did open up, I found myself getting more and more absorbed in the book until I really didn’t want to stop reading.
To me, the plot sounded like it could be annoying, or overly complicated like time-travel stories often are, or because of the circumstances that it couldn’t give me enough reasons to root for the couple to actually end up together. Luckily, I needn’t have worried about that at all. Without spoiling too much, there’s a really nice back and forth element of the time travel plot that really helped the flow of the story and the pacing of everything. There were a few twists that kept things interesting that I may have seen coming a few chapters ahead of the reveal, but they kept things fresh and moving along very nicely.
I also found that this book dealt with grief in a really accurate and touching way to where I, myself, as a rare crier, tearing up in a couple of different parts. It really gave the book as a whole a more emotional and realistic undertone that I think helped bring the story to life and was a testament to Poston’s skills as a writer. If anything, while I generally enjoy shorter books more, I felt like the only issue I’d really have with this book is that I could’ve used a few additional chapters to just completely tie everything together. In fact, I won’t spoil anything here, but one chapter leaves on something really touching that I thought we’d get a full scene of, and then the next chapter begins in a completely different scene. I’m not sure if this is an intentional choice on the authors part to just not go there, or if, because it was very near the end of the book, it was just rushed, but it felt like the latter to me.
But overall I really enjoyed this book and read most of it in a weekend, and if you’re a fan of heartfelt romance with a dash of unrealistic circumstances, I’d highly recommend it.
★★★★⯪
a book blog 
Leave a reply to 12 Books I Read This June – a book blog Cancel reply