Me on The Day Before

Title: The Day Before
Author: Lisa Schroeder
Release Date: June 28, 2011
Publisher: Simon Pulse (S&S imprint)

Amber's life is spinning out of control, so much so all she wants to do is turn up the volume on her iPod until her family's demands fade away. To escape, she sneaks off to spend a day all alone on the beach. There, she meets Cade, someone also looking for an escape, and they decide to spend a perfect day together: no pasts, no fears, no regrets.

The more time Amber spends with Cade, the more she's drawn to him. The more she's troubled by the darkness inside him. To Amber, it seems less like he's living in the now and more like he's living each moment like it's his last.

There's something unbearably haunting about a novel in verse. So much emotion leaks out from the page and into you as you read a novel written in poems. The thoughts and feelings of the person are right there, not cluttered by movement or he said/she said. You get right to the heart of the matter, right to the soul of the character the author has crafted.

Amber's situation feels so heartbreaking at the beginning. She's desperate to get away from the house and live a day just for herself at the beach. Something is about to happen to her, something big, and she wants to live one day on her terms, according to her rules.

Then there's Cade who's running from something big and important and dark and complicated.

This was one of those 'boy and girl meet when they're at a crossroads and needs the other to help pull them back onto the right back before they fall off the edge of the cliff' books, which I don't mind. Sometimes in life, you can't quite make it over the hurdle unless you lean on someone, even when they're a stranger and you don't want to but they're there and they understand you more than you know.

Fans of Lisa Schroeder's romantic verse novels will relish the thought of this one, and hopefully, will gobble it up like YA lit candy. Emotional, haunting, sweet and lovely, I was swept away once again.