This is a book review and plot overview of The Seven Year Slip by Ashley Poston. It’s a romance about a girl who moves into a magical apartment that lets her meet a person seven years in the past.

3 stars

This is the kind of book you have to read at the right time in your life. As they say, it’s all about timing. A person that you meet seven years earlier, for example, has not grown into the kind of person you’re meant to be with – someone you meet seven years too late has changed practically beyond recognition. If you think about what kind of person you were seven years ago… how much has changed?

We follow Clementine, a book publicist at a company called Strass & Adders. She’s damn incredible at her job – ambitious and hardworking, she pours all of her energy into her work. Especially if that allows her to ignore her aunt’s death 6 months prior.

Her aunt left Clementine a ‘magical apartment’. She used to tell her many beautiful stories, including one that Clementine remembered for the rest of her life – a tale about how the apartment’s inhabitant can be sent seven years out of time. Two rules that her aunt ingrained in her were to always take off your shoes at the door, and never fall in love.

Clementine finds herself violating the last rule when she meets an aspiring chef named Iwan, but despite how perfect her mysterious stranger seems, seven years is long enough to change anybody.

Sometimes, we might look at our past selves and idealize or demonize them. Clinging so hard to who we’re trying to become, we can abandon parts of ourselves that we deem unworthy. On the flip side, we might long for our past selves and how carefree and ‘pure’ we were

This book challenged these beliefs in a way I’ve never seen before: by literally sending our main character in and out of time. Clementine was sent to a past where her aunt was alive, a trapped time-bubble where she used to exist as a happy young-adult, unburdened by grief. She fell in love with a person who was destined to change and evolve, as we all do.

I loved how Clementine’s pain of losing her aunt was dealt with – especially after reading the Author’s Note and finding how after losing her grandfather, the author redrafted the entire book. Of course, the process was romanticized to some degree, but it felt healing and beautiful to read about. I could see how it reflected the author’s own journey.

I loved the writing in this book. It was perfect for the kind of story it was trying to tell – romcom-esque, bubbly, emotional and fizzing with wonder. The prose filled me with a sense of hope. It was vivid and painted beautiful images in my head.

I loved every supporting character in this book. Each of them were fun and brimming with personality – I honestly wanted more of them. I didn’t feel like they took away from the ‘screen-time’ of the couple at all, but balanced it out.

At the very beginning of the book, I wasn’t invested in Clementine and Iwan’s relationship at all. When they met in the apartment, they were a little too perfect – their love had no friction, no struggle. It didn’t feel real to me. I kept wondering, what am I supposed to like about these characters? To me, it felt like Iwan said every perfect thing and Clementine always had the perfect reaction and response.

Later on, when they met outside the apartment, I understood their relationship better. I began rooting for them when I saw their struggles. Suddenly, the picture-perfect feeling faded away (more or less…)

However, the reason I gave this book 3.5 stars is that despite that, I still didn’t really like them together. Clementine’s conversations with the supporting cast were full of banter and felt like actual conversations. And yet… I constantly felt like I was waiting for the moment I saw the magic in her relationship with Iwan.

It was better in the second half, but I still wasn’t as invested as I have been in other books. I was rooting for Clementine’s story and personal development, the arcs of her friends, and yet… in a romance book, I should be rooting, above all, for the romance. I just didn’t feel that here. I read Clementine’s emotions, so I knew she was falling in love, but I didn’t fall with her.

I guess the timing wasn’t right for me… this feels like the kind of book I’d fall in love with years from now. It just didn’t resonate with me right now.

The Seven-Year Slip is a romance book with a very unique concept. It teaches us how true acceptance is accepting who you were in the past, as well as being sure in who you are in the present. It’s a book filled with hope, though it fails (to me) to deliver fully on the romance. This book is a fun and quick read that is fairly predictable but still very enjoyable. I would recommend it as a beach-read or a comfort read to come back to when you need some hope and light in your life.