Hazards of Time Travel

In a dystopian near-future full of acronyms and thought police, Adrienne is a bright, studious girl with zero survival instinct. In Dungeons and Dragons terms, wisdom is her dump stat. Everyone tells her to keep her mouth shut and don't overachieve, so of course the thought police arrest her for asking a bunch of questions publicly. Her punishment? Living in the United States midwest in 1959.

I'm 90% sure this is a satire of YA dystopia novels, but it's painfully plausible. Generic White Girl, as she is now known, gets really into intro level philosophy, stalks a professor, and turns up her nose at everything the 50s natives enjoy - TV, movies, art, poetry, etc.

Then the third act really goes off the rails.

I get why this has such mixed reviews. It's solid YA tripe but the satire will probably make YA fans feel betrayed when they catch on. It's decent satire but you've got to slog through the YA melodramatic tone. A lot of research went into the philosophy and history but I kinda tuned out during some of the looooong philosophy tangents.