Thank you Rachel Lynn Solomon and Simon & Schuster for providing me with an ARC in exchange for my honest review!
Barrett Bloom is hoping college will be a fresh start after a messy high school experience. But when school begins on September 21st, everything goes wrong. She’s humiliated by the know-it-all in her physics class, she botches her interview for the college paper, and at a party that night, she accidentally sets a frat on fire. She panics and flees, and when she realizes her roommate locked her out of their dorm, she falls asleep in the common room.
The next morning, Barrett’s perplexed to find herself back in her dorm room bed, no longer smelling of ashes and crushed dreams. It’s September 21st. Again. And after a confrontation with Miles, the guy from Physics 101, she learns she’s not alone—he’s been trapped for months.
When her attempts to fix her timeline fail, she agrees to work with Miles to find a way out. Soon they’re exploring the mysterious underbelly of the university and going on wild, romantic adventures. As they start falling for each other, they face the universe’s biggest unanswered question yet: what happens to their relationship if they finally make it to tomorrow?
Rating: ☆ ☆ ☆ ☆ (4)
'See You Yesterday' was such a lovely read!
When I started this book I was very curious how Rachel Lynn Solomon would keep the time lock interesting. Because starting every chapter with the same opening scene gets boring eventually. But Solomon handled that perfectly.
Whenever the chapter would start with the same scene, Solomon made it interesting by changing the Barrett Bloom's reaction. This triggers a different response from the person that's interacting with Barrett.
As a writer myself, I struggle with writing sci-fi or fantasy elements, because how do you make something sounds logical that isn't really logical? Time travel and time loops are such complicated things. It's easy to get stuck in your own spiderweb of theories and other stuff.
Solomon has clearly spent a lot of time researching en reviewing to get this plot to work.
The main characters were very likeable. Barrett is the narrator in this book. She is a Jewish journalism student and Miles is a Jewish Japanese-American physics student. They are two very different people who have to get along in order to make being stuck in a timeloop bearable. It's fun to see how either of them reacts to the situation. It really fits their personality. What are their ideas to get out of the loop? How will they go about it? Will they be able to work together and wake up on September 22nd? As the story progresses, while the days don't, you see how they both grow as people. They learn more about themselves and about each other. They were a golden pairing and I've loved their interactions.
Reflecting on my reading experience, I couldn't give it the full 5 stars. I really liked the book and I will definitely recommend it, but I did feel like the story kinda lost me a bit at times. So based on my overall experience, I'm giving it a very big 4 stars. 4 stars means you really liked it a lot.
So, definitely check out this book if you are into books with sci-fi elements. This book is such a fun story for people that like time loop stories, like 'Groundhog Day' or 'Palm Springs'.
'See You Yesterday' is out now! You can buy it at your local bookstore or online.