The Day Tripper
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The right guy, the right place, the wrong time. It's 1995, and Alex Dean has it all: a spot at Cambridge University next year, the love of the beautiful and vivacious Holly, and all the time in the world ahead of him. That is until a run-in with a former childhood bully sees him bruised and bloody and almost drowning in the Thames. He awakes the next day only to find he's in a messy, derelict room he's never seen before, in grimy clothes he doesn't recognize, with no idea of how he got there. A glimpse in the mirror tells him he's older--much older--and has been living a hard life, his features ravaged by time and poor decisions. He snatches a newspaper and finds it's 2010--fifteen years since that night by the river. After finally drifting off to sleep that night, Alex wakes the following morning to find it's now 2019, another nine years later. But the next day, it's 1999. Never knowing which day is coming, he begins to piece together what happens in his life after that fateful night by the river. But what exactly is going on? Why does his life look nothing like he thought it would? What happened to Cambridge, to Holly? Alex must push against the heavy headwind of fate, however impossible that might feel, and learn that small actions have untold impact. It might be all he needs to save the people he loves and, equally importantly, himself.
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Always love a good time travel story. This one was pretty standard, no major high stake events to prevent, but I quite liked the quiet simplicity of it. It was an interesting exploration of toxic masculinity too.
Book with the premise that the main character lives his life out of order, each day from his perspective occuring at a different point in time in his life. This is the same premise as Oona Out of Order by Margarita Montimore, although I liked that book quite a bit better. The Day Tripper kind of bogged down the main character moping about smoking and drinking the whole first 2/3 of the book and it felt somewhat tedious. Then when he turned his life around it seemed like it happened way too quickly. The ending was very sweet though.
Interesting Spin On Time Travel. Straight up, this book won't be for everyone. It is *highly* disjointed and takes a *lot* of mental effort to follow... and that is kind of the point, with this particular bent on time travel. We experience the tale in the same way that Alex experiences his life - as singular days completely out of order, beginning on the day that starts it all. The particular reset mechanism, of waking up to a different day every time Alex falls asleep, brings to mind how Ted Dekker used the same concept to have his hero switch between the "real" world and Dekker's very blatantly allegorical world in his Circle Series. While that tale was far more linear - er, circular - this one actually works well for how it chooses to use the concept - but again, this particular storytelling style won't be for everyone, and honestly I'm genuinely surprised the ratings for this book in the ARC realm just days before publication is as high as it is, *because* it is such a tough storytelling mechanic.
But for those that can hang with the way the story is told, the story told is actually quite good, in the more typical time travel bent ala Time Traveler's Wife, The Family Man, A Christmas Carol, Its A Wonderful Life, etc etc etc. It just takes so much effort to follow the storytelling mechanism to see the story that I fear that many readers will abandon the tale too early to see just how good it actually is.
Oh, and because it *can* be so problematic for so many, it *does* need to be mentioned that there is on screen male on male sexual abuse, as well as quite a bit of alcoholism.
Overall an interesting tale told using a unique mechanism I'd never seen before. Very much recommended.
Originally posted at bookanon.com.
