Review copy provided by the publisher
Julia Whelan’s debut, My Oxford Year, captures that rom-com magic; I loved it.
I can’t resist a good American living abroad story. Julia Whelan’s MY OXFORD YEAR is just that. It’s a charming tale in the tradition of some of the best American + Brit rom-coms. And before you even ask, yes, it’s in development. Hallelujah.
American Ella Durran is a Rhodes scholar set to spend a year in Oxford, while balancing a consulting gig for potential presidential contender Janet Wilkes.
Our Ella’s a bit of a fish out of water as she arrives in Oxford, and nearly gets run down by some playboy in an Aston Martin. After a (not so) meet cute in a fish and chip shop, he turns out to be the lecturer for one her classes. (I love this already!) Her newfound friends, a delightfully quirky crew, are quick to warn that said lecturer, Mr. Jamie Davenport, has left a trail of broken hearts from Cambridge to Oxford (By the way, there’s no frowning on fraternization). And so it begins.
Jamie is exceedingly charming — maybe it’s the British accent, maybe it’s the mini-monologues, but he’s a passionate academic who never veers off into windbag territory. His subject of study? Tennyson.
MY OXFORD YEAR is utterly delightful. It captures some of that rom-com magic by focusing on the emotional and intellectual connection between its main characters. It’s all a bit unexpected, but Ella and Jamie agree at the outset, her time in Oxford is finite. This thing, it’s casual. (Until it’s not). Which is fine. (Until it’s not). What’s lovely about this story is that yes, these are two hooking up, there’s no question about that, but at various points, Whelan lets you fill in the blanks in a way that’s sexier than laying it all out:
“You always meet at his rooms in college, which you find preferable to your humble attic abode. After all, you have a twin bed and a shower you can barely fit in; he has a double bed, a clawfoot tub and a corkscrew. What else do you need?” (Indeed, dear author, indeed!)
Although what came to mind as I was reading were 90s rom-coms, mostly of the Hugh Grant variety, MY OXFORD YEAR is thoroughly a contemporary novel. Not just for it’s texting and using Skype to talk to people back in the States. The potential presidential candidate Ella works for is a woman and quickly, the issues Ella advises on are outside her initial purview. Without spoiling anything, I’ll just say, it’s current and timely enough to make you sigh, if only. IF ONLY.
Others have said it, both as a complaint and a complement, but My Oxford Year is right up your alley if you’re a fan of Jojo Moyes’ work. At its heart, My Oxford Year is about choices and growth and life. The fling with a charming, handsome Tennyson scholar who gets under Ella’s skin is the conduit, almost the icing on the cake.
One of the things I love about this book is that the epilogue is not 10 pages long. It doesn’t tack on all the usual things you find in an epilogue, tying up everything in a pretty little bow. It allows Ella and Jamie’s story to be what it is. I dare you not to cry.
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Read an Excerpt from MY OXFORD YEAR
P.S. The actors originally rumored to be attached were Melissa Benoist (fully support) and Sam Heughan (love him, but he’s already an iconic Jamie). I think there’s gotta be someone in their early 30s toiling away overseas. I firmly believe Jamie’s gotta be played by a Brit or Irishman or Scotsman. There are too many cringeworthy possibilities on the American list.
Fave line: “You’re the hyper competitive American, a Rhodes scholar no less, who sees Oxford as a series of hurdles to clear like levels in some video game, and I? I’m the hypocritical poetry scholar, espousing grand theories of one whilst shagging a different wench every night. Brilliant, glad we got that sorted. But who are we, really eh? We’ve told each other what we think, but we’ve no idea what we feel. That requires a conversation. Having words, having language, to connect us to ourselves and each other.”
