Cover photo courtesy of Rachel Lynn Solomon’s Website.
To read the book synopsis, click the following links to be redirected to Goodreads or The StoryGraph.
I want to start out by stating that Rachel Lynn Solomon is an auto buy author for me after reading The Ex Talk in February of 2021. I immediately went through her backlist and loved each of them for different reasons. That being said, I automatically requested this one when I saw it available on Netgalley!
I wish I had read the synopsis a little more closely prior to requesting, because the trope of this story does not usually work for me. I find the storyline of living each day over and over again for 80% of a 300+ page book incredibly underwhelming and boring. That being said, the first 50% of this story was brutal for me. The character development was essentially non existent and the romance actually WAS non existent. Since I was expecting the chemistry buildup of two characters falling in love rather quickly, I was disappointed that the first 60% or so was just the two of them trying to figure out time traveling instead of flirting and falling in love.
At the 60% mark, when we FINALLY start to see some chemistry between the two characters, I felt that it finally picked up quite a bit. I started to feel the chemistry between the two leads and believe them. We got a lot more back story on each of them as well, leading to more in depth character development, and the resolution of the story was timely.
I want to pause here to talk about the level of steam in this book since it is marked on Goodreads as Young Adult. This is NOT a YA book targeted to the 12-17 age range. It is new adult according to the author, and it is definitely not appropriate for that younger age group that you think of as YA readers. The romance was PG-13 with a lot of foreplay but fade to black after a paragraph or two of it (perfect for the new adult audience in my opinion). But I would never hand this to a late middle schooler/early high schooler.
Overall, I give this book 2.5 stars. It was okay, but not great. I think a lot of my distaste for the first half had to do with the “Groundhog Day” trope. I will absolutely read more from RLS, but this one was just not my favorite.
TW: bullying, drug use/rehab, car wreck
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Jenna, Stop Reading! 