The Seven Year Slip by Ashley Poston

An overworked book publicist with a perfectly planned future hits a snag when she falls in love with her temporary roommate…only to discover he lives seven years in the past, in this witty and wise new novel from the New York Times bestselling author of The Dead Romantics.
 

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 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.

The Seven Year Slip has already been well-received with a following but admittedly it took me a while to get into it (as usual contemporary romance fiction without witty comedy is not my go-to genre). While the listed romance genre is prevalent right from the get-go, about a third of the way into the book, the plot and character development ramps up substantially and crosses over into straight contemporary fiction drama. While the romance and chemistry are good, the Seven Year Slip’s synopsis doesn’t include the more nuanced topics covered in the back half of the book involving grief and loss, one’s goals, “happiness”, losing yourself and understanding that constant changes that are inevitable over time.

Our main character Clementine is an ambitious, workaholic publicist working at a small yet successful publishing company who is personally tasked by one of the co-owners to sign an up-and-coming chef James Ashton for a cookbook publishing deal after one of their biggest clients jumps ship to a rival publisher. She throws herself fully into her work 24/7 so there’s no time to have to worry about her recent breakup or the loss of her aunt who she was close to. Just as she’s poised to make a major career promotion, the apartment unit she inherited from her aunt randomly starts opening into the same apartment exactly seven years ago. They say the apartment seems to work its magic just when the owner is at a crossroad in their life and this time is no exception, except seven years ago her aunt’s apartment is temporarily being leased by Iwan for the summer, a young man who recently moved to NYC as an aspiring chef (it’s not the main focus, but foodies may also appreciate the frequent descriptions and inclusion of cooking and restaurants).

While the early chapters follow between Clementine and Iwan follow the usual romcom beats (snappy banter and some great one-liners from Iwan) the novel really takes off once Clementine leaves her apartment back in the present time and encounters an older version of him at a completely different point in his life. The story then begins a pseudo time-travel narrative where Clementine interacts with both the younger and older Iwan, comparing how he’s changed over the course of seven years and wondering where they currently stand. Once a boyish and rough yet passionate and optimistic young man, she grapples with who he appears to become, now a famous, professionally polished, and slightly detached man who may or may not remember her after seven years. This is made even more complicated in that it has been seven years since Iwan had last seen her while for her it was only yesterday.

Compared to Ashley Poston’s earlier novel Dead Romantics, the Seven Year Slip feels like a more confident and polished piece of work. While I generally liked Dead Romantics last year, I had wished that it went further with its deeper topics that seemed to only skim the surface level. I also had minor qualms with the Florence’s character voice being quite whiny and overdramatic and Benji Andor coming off as too perfect and merely checking the typical boxes required of a love interest character. Here though I feel like Poston’s writing substantially leveled up in both ambition and execution, telling a more mature narrative. While also occasionally dramatic at times, Clementine’s character strikes a perfect balance of being confident and successful while still being relatable (I laughed out loud at her pathos plant clinging to life neglected in her kitchen exactly like one of my actual friends). Her worries and struggles are something I really could relate to, and I know they will resonate with many other young adults. Despite her resistance to romance and by extension change, she’s easy to root for. Iwan is also a much more layered character made all the more complex with the surface level differences between his 25 (I think?) and 32 year old selves. The changes in his surface level persona, aspirations, how he carries himself; I’ve read a lot of romance works that focus on the character growth of the main protagonist but it’s less common to see the romantic interest also develop over time (in this case, literal time). A lot of romance novels also use the trope of a professional and detached attractive man whose hiding a warm heart of gold holding other away. The Seven Year Slip does this as well but keeps it fresh by also showing Iwan during a younger and much more impressionable age. The duality works well all while still maintaining a consistent characterization.

There’s a bunch of interesting themes touched upon, but the most prevalent one is that of loss. Despite obviously being devastated at her aunt’s death six months prior to the start of the story, Clementine works through her loss in an avoidant manner that’s both interesting to read about and to connect to. The way she grapples with her grief and how its connected to her life’s aspirations and perceived “happiness” comes full circle once she’s knocked out of her workaholic comfort zone by both versions of Iwan as well as a past friend and lover of her aunt. The slow realization and journey Clementine goes on over the course of the last two thirds of the book is well-paced and woven smoothly in and out of the more obvious romance elements. It’s these nuanced internalized discoveries that kept me interested and bumped up my rating/impression of the book considerably.

Sometimes the people you loved left you halfway through a story. Sometimes they left you without a goodbye. And, sometimes, they stayed around in little ways. In the memory of a musical. In the smell of their perfume. In the sound of the rain, and the itch for adventure, and the yearning for that liminal space between one airport terminal and the next. I hated her for leaving, and I loved her for staying as long as she could.

As a minor side note, while it’s certainly not required to read Dead Romantics before this book, there are a few fun Easter eggs that will reward readers for going in order. Benji Andor and his company Falcon publishing show up as a competing publisher to Clementine’s company and despite not being named specifically, Florence also makes a brief appearance. There are also references to Ann Nichols’ books (the author Florence ghostwrites for). Again, it’s not imperative for the reading experience but it’s definitely fun to see and it places the Seven Year Slip chronologically after (or perhaps a few yrs later) the events in Dead Romantics.

One of Clementine’s aunt’s cardinal rules is to always chase the moon and the same could be said for this story. I found the story to be relatively predictable and the ending perfectly feel-good as expected for the target genre and reading experience, but the execution makes all the difference. What starts as a simple ill-fated time jump romance shoots to be so much more all while being incredibly relatable for any young adult progressing in their careers and late 20’s. Despite a slow start and the romance being good if not great (while I consider it to be one of the weaker elements, that’s how good Clementine’s character arc is in comparison), objectively the Seven Year Slip is at minimum a 4.5 for me. The character voices and internal monologues are excellent and the themes beyond romance that Poston includes are explored thoughtfully (reading the author’s acknowledgements make it obvious how much her irl loss of her grandfather due to suicide had on this book). What’s all the more impressive is that despite ambitious ideas and baggage Clementine experiences, the story still feels hopeful and warm the entire time. The conclusion practically gives you a comforting warm hug and a “you got this!” for whatever difficulties life throws your way. I don’t know if I would’ve picked this to read had I not been introduced to Ashley Poston’s work via Dead Romantics’ amusingly dead concept (dark humor is my thing), but I must say, the Seven Year Slip is a wonderfully written and quality book worth recommending.