I loved the premise of a teen who wakes up as a thirty-year-old, engaged to her high school nemesis. Some of the small moments didn't feel real to me, and the story felt like it was young adult--which I love but wasn't expecting here. A fun read.
Charlotte Wu is a super organized overachiever, and planning the perfect prom is the final item on her high school to-do list. But decorating disasters threaten to undo her plan when she falls off a ladder and crashes into her nemesis, J. T. Renner.
When Charlotte wakes up, she finds that more has gone awry than the streamers in the gym. Unless she's hallucinating or dreaming, she's thirty years old. Living in a grown-up's house, holding down a job, having an adult life.
And the bearded fiance sleeping next to her...is J. T. Renner.
Forget the prom-planning disaster--Charlotte and J. T. seem to have been thrown forward in time and into the thick of young adulthood. But why? How and why would she end up with her nemesis?
J. T. and Charlotte must work together to figure out: Are they meant to change the future, make sure nothing changes, learn a lesson, or impart knowledge of some kind? Can they find their way back to their seventeen-year-old selves? Have they missed thirteen years of their lives--and the chance to figure out how the heck they ended up together?
This premise is a slam-dunk for me. I looove a book that plays with time.
Some of the small moments didn't work for me here, and the book felt like a young adult read to me (but wasn't sold as such), with the teen-focused angst and perspectives.
I may have seen the mistaken-premise setup coming, and the friend betrayal, and the rough lines of the resolution to come, but I loved the bookending of the time capsule and letters to their future selves, the second-chance element, and the love. Woke Up Like This is a fun read.
Do you have any Bossy thoughts about this book?
A teen-focused book I loved that played with time is Rachel Lynn Solomon's See You Yesterday.
If you're intrigued by time-travel stories, you might also like the books on the Greedy Reading Lists Six Riveting Time-Travel Stories to Explore and Six Second-Chance, Do-Over, Reliving-Life Stories, Six More Time-Travel Stories to Dive Into, and Six More Riveting Time-Travel Stories to Explore.