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: stay busy, 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.
- Title: The Seven Year Sliip
- Author: Ashley Poston
- Publisher: Berkley
- Publication Date: June 27, 2023
- Genre: Romance
- Targeted Age Range: Adult
- Content Warnings: Death, grief, dementia, death of a grandparent, death of an aunt, suicide
- Rating: ★★★★★
One of my group chats decided to do a traveling book club, where we each pick a book and annotate it, and then send it off to the next person, and by the end, everyone will have read the book, and will have annotated it, and it’ll go back to the original owner of the book. I wanted to pick something that none of us had read yet, and I’d heard that my friend Julianne loved The Seven Year Slip so I thought “Why not?”. My approach to the traveling book club was even if I hate it, it’ll still be fun to see everyone’s reactions. Honestly, I didn’t expect to love The Seven Year Slip as much as I did. If you’ve been following me on some of my socials, you might’ve noticed that I’ve been stuck in the worst book slump this year, to the point that even highly anticipated reads have become let downs. It’s really been a while since I’ve genuinely loved a book. But The Seven Year Slip might’ve just broken the curse. The Seven Year Slip is, undoubtedly, one of my top five books this year, and I haven’t been able to shut up about it upon finishing. Even prior to finishing it, I was telling all my friends about how much I loved it already — starting from the 15 page mark. One of my friends told me “It’s so nice to see you this excited about books again”, which just meant a lot to me.
When we first meet her, Clementine is drowning in her job as a book publicist, making spreadsheets, keeping her guard up, and doing anything but what her beloved late aunt, Analea, taught her. Growing up, Clementine and Analea would go on adventures together, where Clementine learned to always have her passport renewed, pair red wines with meats and whites with everything else, find work that’s fulfilling to her heart and head, to never forget to fall in love wherever you can find it, and to always chase the moon. When Clementine comes home from work one day, she finds a man in her late aunt’s apartment: a chef named Iwan, who exists seven years in the past. And against all odds, she finds herself falling in love with him. Except the way time works in the apartment is fickle, and it’s a toss up on when she’ll be greeted with Iwan’s smiling face, or if she’ll be back in her apartment alone, haunted by her aunt’s memories.
First and foremost, “always chase the moon” is exactly the kind of phrase that I’d get tattooed on me, if I didn’t have a debilitating fear of needles. The entirety of The Seven Year Slip is filled with such beautiful prose that was just so captivating. I felt like I was in New York with Clementine at any given moment. I simply just loved the way Poston writes; in a way, The Seven Year Slip almost feels like your best friend, who happens to be a magnificent storyteller, telling you a story, over a cup of coffee.
I’m often drawn to stories with a strong grief theme, and Clementine’s grief just resonated so deeply with me. Clementine’s love for her aunt was so palpable, and more than once, I felt such strong affection for a character that doesn’t exist. I’ve never wanted to meet a fictional character so badly. Poston does a wonderful way of describing Analea that not only makes her feel tangible, but also makes the reader feel how much Clementine loved Analea and the influence Analea had on Clementine in every interaction. Clementine’ grief is such a tangible third presence in the story — in the way that her aunt is haunting every interaction. Clementine falls into a category of female main characters that I just love: the millennial who is burnt out, and not entirely sure of what she loves to do — In a way, she reminds me of Nora from Emily Henry’s Book Lovers, but if Nora had been heavily influenced by Poppy from People We Meet on Vacation growing up. Weighed down by her grief, Clementine has simply been throwing herself into her work to get by — it isn’t until much later that she stops to consider her own happiness, and potential other options. I wish we’d gotten a little more time with Clementine’s journey to figuring out what other options looked like for her, but I think Poston wrapped everything up really nicely. Clementine and Iwan’s love story was incredibly charming. Against all odds, I couldn’t help but root for them — I can’t say too much without giving everything away (although I do think the entire plot is very predictable) but just know that I absolutely loved them.
If you love “Timeless” by Taylor Swift, stories where characters have to reevaluate their life and their direction, or stories with a strong grief storyline, I could not recommend The Seven Year Slip more highly. Please read it, then come talk to me about it!
Links for The Seven Year Slip: Goodreads | TheStorygraph | Bookshop.org
Ashley Poston is the New York Times and USA Today best-selling author of The Dead Romantics.
After graduating from the University of South Carolina with a bachelor’s in English, she spent the last decade working in the publishing industry before deciding to pursue writing full-time.
When not writing, she likes trying various arts and crafts (she’s currently addicted to building miniature rooms) and taking long walks as an excuse to listen to Dungeons & Dragons podcasts. She bides her time between South Carolina and New York, and all the bookstores between.
Follow Ashley: Instagram | Website
