3.75* I loved the book alot. I enjoyed the characters and the plot. I felt the ending was a very rushed and left so many open endings that to me made me want more. I think the massive info dump at the end could have been more sprinkled throuhgout the novel. But I loved the time travel element and just wish the ending was a more clear and not so open ended! ( )

3.75* I loved the book alot. I enjoyed the characters and the plot. I felt the ending was a very rushed and left so many open endings that to me made me want more. I think the massive info dump at the end could have been more sprinkled throuhgout the novel. But I loved the time travel element and just wish the ending was a more clear and not so open ended! ( )

Very solid 3/5 stars

I REALLY enjoyed a lot of this book. I love Grandmother, I love the parables sprinkled throughout the story, I love how the story IS a parable. I thought it was a really cool concept and the writing style was pretty enjoyable as well!

I wish there was a name for this kind of genre. Like, if you’ve watched Jane the Virgin, telenovelas are a huge part of Jane’s life and her connection to her abuela, and you could even argue her culture. Then the show itself mirrors the telenovela style all the while being self aware and nodding into it. I just love that stuff.

Beauuutiful story and beautiful storytelling.

Biggest gripe is how quickly everything moved. Namely: instalove. With this whole time jumping concept I feel like they could have easily gotten more time where they built their relationship even if their initial meetings felt more inconsequential. Like, maybe more scattered flirting and weird otherworldly meetups over a year or two. Also, a lot of the book feels coming of age but they are just little babies. I wish they could've been aged up, maybe just out of college instead or smthng and a lot of the same feelings could be mirrored. There is a theme of feeling lost in your 20s too not just after you graduate high school! Sometimes you feel lost your whole life. I wish books would would let you embrace that feeling instead of just making you read about 17 year olds making out idk

Just finished this book like, 20 minutes ago, so I still have some thinking to do, but I think overall it was a pretty good read! ( )

{stand alone; fantasy, YA, magical realism, time travel, alternative realities, debut}(2016)

Natalie is a half native girl who is adopted but loved and has just finished high school in Kentucky. The story begins at that nebulous time at the start of the summer holidays before she is due to leave for college. All her life she has had visions of alternative realities and now she is told, by the entity she knows as 'Grandmother', that she has 'three months to save him' - but not whom or from what.

Then she meets Beau, the 'band hall ghost' and they are immediately attracted to each other. But the three months is running out - and Natalie still has to find out how to save him (but which 'him'?) and from what.

I found this a bit confusing as I wasn't sure what was going on; but then neither did Natalie. I thought the romance was sweet. I liked the ending, but I wish there had been an epilogue to tie up a couple of trailing threads.

Oh - and I love Gus, Natalie's St. Bernard (who's supposed to guard her from nightmares - but he's just a softie).

(August 2023)
4 stars ( )

There is something not quite right about Natalie Cleary’s world. It could be the nightmares, or the ethereal visits she gets in the middle of the night (typically after a nightmare) from a woman she calls “Grandmother”, or it could be that buildings and people sometimes disappear and sometimes are in the wrong place or just different. These differences don’t last. But now she’s met a boy while in this altered state, if that’s what it is, and she’s rather desperate for him to stay around even when her world returns to normal. So, we’ve got all the angst and frustration of being a teenager coupled with all the weirdness of possible worlds or time travel or whatever the heck is going on. She’s determined to get to the bottom of it before she heads off to university at the end of the summer. But now her “Grandmother” spirit guide, or what have you, has vanished after warning her that she only has three months left to save the boy. Wait, what boy?

Full marks to Emily Henry for challenging herself to tackle both a full-blown romance and a speculative fiction in the same YA novel. It’s a tall order and, for the most part, she succeeds. I’m not sure that the explanations towards the end are really coherent, but the emotional and narrative stuff is certainly on track. And so is the poise and confidence of this writer in her first novel. She’s so capable and well-practised that it’s hardly surprising that she goes on in short order to become a publishing phenomenon.

Enjoyable and easy to recommend. ( )