Cam Lightsey, who has raised her daughter alone since her ex-husband left them for a cult, has Aubrey's life planned out. She's going to college, going to make something of herself. All she has to do it get her to go to the bank and sign out the college trust fund that was set up by her father. She even offers her a GAP YEAR, a year to go do something before college, but it only pushes them further apart.

Aubrey Lightsey has other ideas on how she wants to spend her life and she's tired of her mother constantly degrading her job at the catering van. Bur most of all she is really tired of her nasty comments about Tyler Moldenhauer. Yes, he is a football player and sure he comes from the wrong side of the tracks but her mom really doesn't know the real Tyler. The day Aubrey turns 18 she takes out the whole college fund and disappears.

Cam has no choice but to contact her ex to find out why he opened up the money for Aubrey and not have it sent to a college. She decides he owes her. But Martin Lightsey is no longer in the cult and is flat broke, but he wanted to make sure that the money would get to Aubrey before he left the cult. He admits to contact with her via the internet and wants to help find her and wants to get to know her better. While the two of them search for Aubrey and Tyler they also get to know each other again and find that they still have a lot in common even after 16 years.

THE GAP YEAR is a need to read book for any mother of a daughter, or daughter of a mother. It's filled with touching insights to a single mother's world and a teenager's plan that are not the same as the mother's. Ms. Bird wrote this book in a way that allows you to see the year before through Aubrey's eyes and the current year through her mothers which makes it very easy to put all the pieces together. You can see the romance start up innocently between Aubrey and Tyler and the beginning of the gap that comes between daughter and mother. I would recommend THE GAP YEAR to any woman of any age.