Review: Maybe One Day by Melissa Kantor

I can't decide if I like this cover or the original better?
This one depicts the girls pretty accurately but there's no beach in the book...

★★★★☆

Before you read this book, disregard everything you think you know about cancer diagnosis and treatment. I'm not saying the book is one hundred percent inaccurate, but I've seen a lot of reviews complaining about how "unrealistic" it is, and I think it's best to go in with an open mind. The book isn't about the cancer, the diagnosis or the treatment-- it's about two childhood best friends going through it together. Because even though only one of them has cancer, they are both going through it. And that's kind of the point.

The Author's Note clearly states that in any instances where she had to choose between medical accuracy and the story itself, she chose the story. As the author, that's kind of her job, and as readers, I think it's kind of our job to respect that.

Olivia and Zoe have been best friends since they were tiny children (I don't remember how old, exactly). They have always done everything together, including going to and getting dropped from a prestigious dance school. They know each other's wardrobes, practically live at each other's houses, and consider each other members of their family. Every important thing that's ever happened to them has happened not to Olivia or to Zoe, but to Olivia and Zoe.

Including Olivia's cancer.

Narrated by Zoe, Maybe One Day is partly a reflection on a lifelong friendship, and partly a struggle with reality: that the "forever" in "best friends forever" isn't always as long as it should be.

Let me make one thing clear on the "reality" front for a second. This book isn't action-packed, there isn't anything overtly exciting about it, and there isn't a sweep-you-off-your-feet-never-leave-the-ground-again romance. It's about living your day-to-day life when you're a teenager whose best friend has cancer, and you're still trying to figure out what extracurricular activity you want to do. If you've ever watched Friday Night Lights, you know that sometimes "real" doesn't mean "boring." Humanity at its most regular and normal can be some of the most interesting stories you'll ever find, and that is what's great about this book. I was completely absorbed in Zoe and Olivia's friendship, and I was only occasionally bothered by the lack of attention given to the romance (which only bothered me not because it made the romance less important, but because the times when Zoe's relationship with Calvin was the main focus, it seemed like insta-love. Like there was no real connection between them other than a crush under development). The story of these two girls and their lives together I think will hit home with a lot of people-- it will strike a chord because this is the kind of friendship some people have always been jealous of, or because they will find themselves in it. It was a little bit of both for me. 

And I really loved Zoe's relationships with everyone, not just Olivia. She's like a sister to Olivia's brother, Jake, and very much not like a daughter to Olivia's parents. I thought that relationship with her best friend's parents was important, because it was realistic; I've experienced it myself. That nagging feeling that your friend's parents don't like you, that maybe even they wish it were you who had cancer instead of their daughter. Why wouldn't they? But how is Zoe supposed to deal with that? Being treated like an outsider when you've felt like a part of the family for so long is going to have unforseen emotional consequences; Zoe is bitter a lot of the time, and she lashes out at her own parents. But their friendship dictates that it doesn't matter, and she's always there for Olivia. In the end, the fact that Olivia's parents didn't think of her as their adoptive daughter was not important, because Olivia was. 

Her relationship with Calvin was not the main focus of the story, but I think it helped move it along. It helped Zoe deal with a lot of things, provided a bit of well-needed tension, and wasn't entirely boring. Calvin is vaguely swoon-worthy and a truly good person, so I can't really complain here.

Especially since this book isn't pitched as a romance, nor should it be. It's about friendship.

So yes, Maybe One Day is a tearjerker, and you can probably guess why. But it will also make you nostalgic, and angry, and happy, and hopeful. To reduce it to how many buckets of tears you shed while reading it would be a tremendous disservice.