Ava Rubin

★ ★ ★ ★
I realllyyyy liked this book. To describe it in three words, I'd say unique, whimsical, and a little bit twisted. The first half did take me like 2 days to get through, but I just read the second half in one sitting and didn't even realize it. I love me some time travel, and I felt like this was an original take / story on it. I feel like this book definitely blends genres—and it does it really well. It's the perfect mixture of mystery, sci-fi, and romance. Like any good multiverse story, it obviously left me with some logistical questions. What happened to the June that went back to 2022? Did she just cease to exist?? Did she just fold into that time's June? Also with the infinite loop of events at the end—this was talked about but I'm still confused?? How does that work?? But the main thing this book left me thinking about was what makes someone unique and/or themselves. The June who had made a life in 1945 was technically the same one who returned, obvious, in 1951. But she also wasn't. Different paths and choices had let them to that moment, and they had different experiences to some extent. So when Eamon and her re-meet and re-fall in love, is he falling in love with his wife, or someone else? Because the woman he married is someone he had shared life and unique experiences with. This new June is not her. But she also is. Because eventually their timelines merge and new June becomes old June. But hypothetically, if old June was to return the day after new June and Eamon rekindled, would that be cheating?? What does Eamon do? What does either June do?? Do they just all choose to ignore this, and pretend like they're the same person? I know at first Eamon feels and treats her as a different person, but the end is just happily ever after. I chose the word twisted because some parts really made me sad for everyone involved. Mainly when June was struggling to make sense of everything, and everyone was keeping her in the dark, but they also were struggling with her return. She felt that love for her daughter, and somewhere else that love for her husband, but she couldn't do anything about it, because she wasn't the woman who had created that life. Also!! I really thought Mason would be a bigger part of this. I think that was a missed opportunity—or perhaps a setup for a second book? Although it felt pretty final. That idea felt half baked, and also really tragic because he just got left behind, and it was barely covered. Everyone else close to her (literally just Birdie I guess) knew what was coming and what happened to her. I feel like there could've been a bigger romance there where she struggled to choose or something idk. And then she was just fine leaving him behind? Anyway. Despite some (what I will call) plot holes (more like underdeveloped points), I found this book refreshing and new and anyone who likes any of the many genres it crosses into would probably enjoy this.

★ ★ ★
( maybe 3.5 )

Overall, I found this book to be like playing a game of Clue from every single characters POV except with half the amount of cards in your hand, and three times as many culprit cards in the envelope. And on top of that, your cheat sheet card keeps getting erased randomly. Exciting, confusing, frustrating. It simultaneously felt like it should be such a simple mystery to solve, yet I struggled more than I'd like to admit to connect any of the pieces. I don't read mystery, so it was a good genre switch up for me, however, it was overall just too slow and took me too long to finish. (Also this review is super long because I decided to write down my thoughts while reading it; so this is a culmination of that)

About halfway through the book, I was struggling to make sense of things, as well as keep going. The pace was almost too slow, and it just felt very repetitive. I know that's the premise of the book, but it still was starting to bore me. I also had felt that by this point, more things would be making sense, and I'd have connected more dots. I did have some working theories, though: 1) that Anna is actually at the center of it all—she's the murderer and/or creator of the game 2) the mom (Helena) isn't really as involved as we are supposed to think she is, that's a distraction 3) The cuts on both Bell and Gold were self sustained, and supposed to help remind them of something for the next iteration of the loop.

Now, three quarters of the way done, the pace has definitely begun to pick up. I'm not getting bored reading it, and am much more eager to turn the pages! I still honestly have no idea how this ends, and I'm not sure if it's supposed to be like that, or if I'm just slow to the punch.

This book also stirred up some rather philosophical questions within me. I'm writing this portion at the halfway point, so perhaps some of this will get answered in time. Here goes: How do we know who to trust? Where does that gut feeling come from? In situations where you don't know anyone, how can you decide who to trust and lean on? In Aidan's case, with no memory of his life or who he is, where does his confidence in his trust come from? More prominently, though, reading this really got me thinking about the bounds of personality and sense of self. When in a host body/mind, Aidan is constantly having to suppress his host's instincts and thoughts. When he fails to do so, he will act out in the same way the host would in that situation, rather than how he would. But other times he is able to suppress the host so much so that others notice the shift in personality and behavior. So, I wonder where one personality starts and one ends. And, with that, what aspects of personality are core to who you are, and which aspects are merely just there—perhaps as a byproduct of your core qualities. This also made me wonder how “aware” the hosts are while they are the host. Is the personality breaking through actually them being conscious of what is happening, and trying to control the situation? When they are no longer a host, will they remember that day? Anna mentioned that she could feel that she's been trapped there for decades, so is it the same case for those host people? Have they been stuck there for decades, being forced to play a part in this weird game? So when (or if) it is eventually over, what is left of them? Will they know it's been that long, or will it just feel like they pressed resume on their life?

On top of all this, there's the “time travel” groundhogs day aspect to this story that is also beginning to trip me up. On one hand it makes sense, but on the other, it really doesn't, and is seemingly paradoxical. The best example I can think of is with the note Bell reads at the stables. Bell is the day 1 host, so he knows nothing that is going on. He reads the note from Anna (plus a future version of himself as Dance), telling him to go to the graveyard at 10:20pm, make sure your gloves don't burn, etc. etc. Chronologically, this happens on day 1. Then, a couple of days later, when Aidan is Dance, we learn the origin of that letter, and how Anna/Dance wrote it and placed it there because they knew where Bell would be at that time. Dance also knows exactly what to write because he's already read the letter (as a past version of himself). So where did the original thought originate? If Dance decided to write something else, straying from the original note, what does that mean for the Bell of the past—the one from day 1, not the one existing on whatever day this is. Sure, the rest of the day could change (butterfly effect and whatnot), but it's basically the grandfather paradox, but almost in reverse. Although, I suppose this story isn't following the normal rules of spacetime, so everything that is going on isn't really time travel when it comes down to it, so these questions are futile and irrelevant.

★ ★ ★ ★ ½
Wow. This was honestly unlike anything I've ever read. At first I thought the way it was written was just going to be for a chapter or two, and if it wasn't, I remember thinking I don't know how much more I could read. I was wrong. Don't get me wrong, plenty of books have made me emotional in a variety of ways. But this one was so different. It was so real. The plot itself was life, and all the mess, sadness, joy, love, pain, despair, friendship, beauty and chaos that comes with it. It honestly made me anxious and depressed at points, and I had to take breaks or refrain from reading. I highlighted a lot of excerpts from this one, mainly from Peter's chapters, that I thought were funny or just so real. I'm obsessed with how genuine she was able to write these characters and really portray exactly how they think and feel and process and act. It wasn't just the words themselves, or a perfect selection of adjective it was the cadence. The flow, or sometimes even the lack thereof.

“In silence they lie together for a time. Sense of them both having dropped a long pretence. Wants almost to say more. Tell her everything, what happened, is still happening, the agony, hatred he wakes up with every morning, wishing he was dead, fear of losing her, both of them. I can't go through it again. I'm sorry. There's someone else. I think it would be better for everyone if I. No need however he thinks to speak.”
“What then. Whole thing getting out of hand. His life, widening black emptiness from which he could only avert his eyes.”
“Why do you have to leave. Why does everyone, why does everyone always have to leave me, why. Actually, I'm sorry, before I settle up, I'll have the same again. Vodka, yeah, thanks. Can I pay with card?”

This one. The seamless switch from spiraling, depressing, depressing, self-loathing, thoughts into an ordinary and seemingly uneventful exchange. Ordering another drink. Asking to pay with card. Meanwhile the thoughts he's having are all consuming, bringing him down and down. Trying to drink it all away, when inevitably, that won't lead to anything productive or good, yet it distracts. It takes you away from life, even for a little, but sometimes only to suck you back down into the pit you were trying to crawl out of , with a force ten times more powerful than what it took to get out.

“Well, if that's suffering, he thinks, let me suffer. Yes. To love whoever I have left. And if ever I lose someone, let me descend into a futile and prolonged rage, yes, despair, wanting to break things, furniture, appliances, wanting to get into fights, to scream, to walk in front of a bus, yes. Let me suffer, please. To love just these few people, to know myself capable of that, I would suffer every day of my life.”

How to even describe what reading that does. MY heart actually hurts for him. The life he so desperately wants to live, impossible, and out of reach. That feeling in life when you have no control of what's happening to you or around you. And all you can do is just be in a little boat alone trying to ride out the waves and not capsize. The people we love are just as much as part of us as our sense of humor, favorite color, or food. To lose two people, in very different senses of the word, yet both devastating. It's no wonder he is feeling the way he is. But also to recognize the privilege it is to have people you care so deeply about, that losing them would cause such deep despair. That is life. Part of what it means to live, as tragic and painful and awful as it is.

“Life, which is now the most painful ordeal conceivable, was happy then, the same life. A cruel kind of joke, you'll agree. Anyway, you're young, make the most of it. Enjoy every second. And on your twenty-fifth birthday, if you want my advice, jump off a fucking bridge. Thanks.”

Funny, sad, lonely. This was his rock bottom. The rejection and ensuing fight with Sylvia. Immediately buying a bottle of vodka, drinking the entire thing on a train ride to see his ex-girlfriend. Only to be met with his brother. Getting in a terrible fight with him, then drunkenly crawling to his mom's house. Only to wake up, make the journey back home, contemplating different forms of suicide. Then he opens the door and the two women that have become as essential to him as his legs, are in his living room. In denial of his feelings, or maybe just so lost and confused he barely knows his lefts from his rights at this point. Trying so hard to make sense of everything and rationalize it, yet to no avail. There is no optimal solution, Peter. That's the truth of it. You can't have it both ways. He knows this. Says this. And maybe to keep them both in his life would keep them both happy, but not him. Later, he says about Naomi: “That he has come to love her, such an absurdity: like a stage fight where it turns out the knives are real.” I loved this line. I feel like it could be applied to so many scenarios in life. You think you know exactly what to expect. Something rehearsed, or normal—mundane. Maybe a bit fun. Entertaining. But no! The knives are real. Maybe you get stabbed, or worse, you stab somebody. The fun is over. The monotony disrupted. Now you enter a new chapter of your life, one with the pain of being stabbed or being the stabber. But maybe it is not all so bad. In the end, he found a way to at least begin preparing his relationships with those he cares about. All it took was to show up, and to be honest. And honestly, I think that's all you can ask of someone.

At the core of all that is the fact that this just a slice of life that Rooney has excellently captured. Never have I read something that so accurately depicts what it's like to live. And I know that's a strange thing to praise, as at the end of the day, I am living a human life, and so is literally anyone else that reads this. I know books are sometimes used as an escape from reality, to not have to think about what it means or feels like to be human. But I think it's important to be reminded of and have to face the nuances of life. To remember that things aren't necessarily as clear as they seem. Like Ivan and Peter's relationship. Brothers, a decade apart. Perpetually at different stages in their life. Inherently very different people. Yet, at the end of it all, able to say I love you to each other, and spend a Christmas together. Despite all the anger and jealousy and resentment that lingers between them. Or Sylvia and Peter. How complex of a relationship they have, yet, it makes so much sense. I don't know, I think I just really appreciated how authentic everything in this book was. I feel like I often find myself a bit annoyed or tired with now unrealistic some other books I've read are. I think it was also a bit cathartic. Although they aren't real people, just to know that life isn't as easy as we are all trying to pretend it is. To sum it up, intense, heartbreaking, and comforting. This one has left me with a lot to think about, and, honestly, a bit of a new outlook on things.

★ ★ ★ ★ ★
LOVED. I haven't rated a book 5 stars in a while but this one definitely is. I don't even know where to start. I loved the way it was written. The switching of POVs that simultaneously answered and posed more questions. I loved all the characters. The twists were genuinely surprising and literally left me like

★ ★ ★ ½
Okay. I have very conflicting thoughts about this one. My three words for this book are repetitive, unoriginal (sorry), and captivating. Throughout the entire book, Darrow's inner monologue is pretty one dimensional, and even after the first few chapters, extremely repetitive. The amount of references to Eo got exhausting real quick. We get it—he's doing all this for red-haired girl from the mine who wanted more from the world. His internal conflicts are pretty basic, and almost too straightforward. The way it's written leaves little for the reader (me) to infer or fill in, and it just too on the nose. It's like a robot tried to have and express their emotions the way they think emotions should be expressed, but it just falls completely flat. I know there was so much potential for me to really feel like I was in his mind—experiencing what was—but I felt very disconnected from it. Also, the first couple chapters with the war games was literally just Ender's Game? Ok. Moving on to what I liked. I loved the pace of it. I was never bored (well, except from about 50% - 60%, but we'll get to that). I finished it in a couple of days, and didn't struggle to keep turning the pages. Also, I really liked the way the dialogue is written—I wish that writing style had carried over into Darrow's thoughts. I also felt like there were a ton of twists, and I never really saw them coming. Every time you think it's going well, sure there's that little hint of “well something has to go wrong”, but I never knew what exactly was going to go wrong. I will say, from the halfway point until about the 2/3 mark, I zoned out, and wasn't really following what was happening, and didn't have much of a desire to figure it out either. Really, what's carrying this rating is the pacing and amount of action. I still don't feel the urge to pick up the next book and find out what happens next.