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A review by kindleandilluminate
Time Travel for Love and Profit by Sarah Lariviere
5.0
Freshman year starts terribly for math prodigy Nephele Weather, with her best friend ghosting her to join the cool kids, and it only goes downhill from there. So naturally she turns to math for a way out, inventing a time machine (or rather, phone app) to let her redo the year. And redo it again. And again, and again...
Time Travel for Love and Profit, a mix of Groundhog Day and All the Birds in the Sky, is as aggressively weird as its teen genius protagonist, and I loved every second of it. Is this book quirky? Absolutely. And all that quirkiness is completely delightful and heartfelt. I genuinely didn't expect to get as emotional as I did, but Nephele and her time loop tragedies are genuinely moving, as she struggles with the consequences of her actions, like staying a teenager forever while everyone else grows up and forgets her. Nephele's voice is unique and young - I seriously appreciated that this book managed to feel like the YOUNG part of YA, an age group that too often gets left behind between middle grade and 17/18-year-old YA. I can see how the stylistic writing and oddball characters might irritate some readers (although, I grew up with so many rainbow-suspender-wearing, poetry-quoting amateur magicians like Jazz, it's hard for me to take seriously anyone who says he's *too* quirky to be realistic), but I found them, and the book as a whole, playful, charming, and refreshing. It's a whimsical story, but one filled with heart.
Thank you to NetGalley and the publisher for the advance review copy!
Time Travel for Love and Profit, a mix of Groundhog Day and All the Birds in the Sky, is as aggressively weird as its teen genius protagonist, and I loved every second of it. Is this book quirky? Absolutely. And all that quirkiness is completely delightful and heartfelt. I genuinely didn't expect to get as emotional as I did, but Nephele and her time loop tragedies are genuinely moving, as she struggles with the consequences of her actions, like staying a teenager forever while everyone else grows up and forgets her. Nephele's voice is unique and young - I seriously appreciated that this book managed to feel like the YOUNG part of YA, an age group that too often gets left behind between middle grade and 17/18-year-old YA. I can see how the stylistic writing and oddball characters might irritate some readers (although, I grew up with so many rainbow-suspender-wearing, poetry-quoting amateur magicians like Jazz, it's hard for me to take seriously anyone who says he's *too* quirky to be realistic), but I found them, and the book as a whole, playful, charming, and refreshing. It's a whimsical story, but one filled with heart.
Thank you to NetGalley and the publisher for the advance review copy!