The Seven Year Slip

Happy publication day!

Dead Romantics was my favorite romance last year and I feel truly honored for having the possibility to read this book prior to its release.
What can I say about ”The seven year slip”? I liked it even more than the authors debut.

This book follows the story of Clementine, who inherits her aunts apartment after her death. They were very close and used to travel the world together every year.
Clementine is devastated by the loss and consumed with grief. Luckily, the apartment is magical and takes you seven years in the past or future when you find yourself at a crosswords, which is Clementine's case.

I loved a ton of things about this book:
- The premise of the book is quite interesting and perfectly accomplished with Ashley's beautiful and captivating writing
- It's a story about grief, acceptance, self discovery and growth, enveloped with a cute romance and filled with hope.
- Clementine's aunt was great and I loved to read about their relationship and her pieces of advice
”My aunt used to say, if you don't fit, fool everyone until you do. She also said to keep your passport renewed, to pair red wines with meat and whites with everything else, to find work that is fulfilling to your heart as well as your head, to never forget to fall in love whenever you find it because love is nothing if not a matter of timing, and to chase the moon.”
- Iwan has my heart. He is the kind of hero that it's impossible not to fall in love with.
- I liked how the nicknames would be related/ represent who the characters were at each moment. This was nicely done.

What I think it could have been done better:
- Despite her aunt's brilliant life advices, it appeared that Clementine completely forgot the bit regarding the timing of love and focused only on the house rules, to the point I also forgot she mentioned something about love before. This felt weird and I think it would have been beautiful to connect their relationship with her aunt true recommendations/ beliefs.
- Although I'm quite convinced about the romance with Iwan of the past, the romance on the present felt to insta for me. Clementine is always remarking about how different he is from the Iwan she knows and is falling for. I feel the book needed more present scenes of Iwan and Clementine to convince me they would work out and this is the main reason why I dropped one star.

I would like to thank HQ and NetGalley for the opportunity to read this ARC in exchange for an honest review.

I thought I had this book all figured out in the first 20 pages. Things seemed almost too obvious to me, so I kept reading assuming I would either be very surprised or not surprised at all. I'm happy to report most of my assumptions were wrong.

I thought this book would be about Clementine trying to find Iwan in her present, but it's really about change, growth, and the expectations you put on other people. Finding him wasn't the hard part, it was coming to terms with the seven years in between past and present Iwan. This is what kept me reading.

I didn't have any complaints about pacing while reading it, but in hindsight things feel very quick. The story has depth but overall it feels like not a lot happened. I'm sure this is because time is split between the past and the present.

I think this is one of my favorites of hers. Ashley Poston writes tender romantic comedies with complex feelings on grief and this is no exception. Fans of her other books will find this one just as good.

I gave up half-way through–just kind of drifted on to other books and never came back. This was nominated for a best of the year in the romance category? Maybe I should keep reading...but I wasn't in love enough with the heroine to put up with her need to grow up, trust others, make changes in her life rather than being passive. I found the hero charming, but not enough to keep going. What can I say? Maybe if I'm looking for big doses of emotional maturity and owning one's own baggage, I should re-read Role Playing again.