More Time-Travel Adventures
I love a book that plays with time--the possibilities of trying things a different way, the second chances, the peeks into what might have been or what really occurred.
My first Greedy Reading List of books that focused on this theme was Six Riveting Time-Travel Stories to Explore, which I followed with Six Riveting Time-Travel Stories to Explore. You might also like the books on the list Six Second-Chance, Do-Over, Reliving-Life Stories.
Here are six more novels across genres that kept me hooked on their time-travel stories.
Have you read any of these? If so, I'd love to hear what you thought.
Do you have any favorite books that involve time travel?
01 See You Yesterday by Rebecca Lynn Solomon
Rachel Lynn Solomon crafts another sweet, quirky, funny, romantic young adult story that plays with time and is centered around irresistibly imperfect characters.
In See You Yesterday, Rachel Lynn Solomon explores the first day of college for Barrett Bloom, who desperately needs a fresh start.
But on day one, Barrett's ruthlessly straightforward manner, defensive way of keeping others at a distance, and habit of speaking harsh truths before she stops to think seem destined to lead her to misstep and thwart her own chances of success and happiness. After being involved in multiple disasters in only her first day of classes, she fears college may become a ruination on par with the end of her high school career.
She wakes up the next day...and finds that she's reliving her first day of college. She has the incredible chance to make the same decisions or to consider her choices and do things differently. The following morning, she gets yet another chance at reliving her first day. And there's an interesting boy she keeps running into, regardless of which paths and options she alters. He keeps challenging her and seems to know her somehow. Barrett can't decide if this time loop is a dream come true--or a living nightmare.
I love Rachel Lynn Solomon's stories, and I loved this story of Barrett and Miles and youthful adventure and finding themselves and discovering how to be vulnerable and ALL of it. Hook, line, and sinker.
Click here for my full review of See You Yesterday.
02 The Space Between Worlds by Micaiah Johnson
Johnson offers a wonderfully imperfect heroine and her fascinating journeys through the multiverse, her various lives, and her alternate selves in this science fiction debut.
Cara is one of a dwindling number of traversers. She can travel through the multiverse, but only to worlds where another version of herself no longer exists. Her other selves seem uncannily apt to die, so Cara is able to visit 372 other Earths where her counterparts are no longer living.
But when one of Cara's eight remaining selves mysteriously dies while she is world walking, shocking secrets are revealed that connect various worlds and shake Cara to her core. She must cobble together the various bits of knowledge and savviness she's gained through tracing the steps of her many other selves if she's going to stand any chance of outsmarting the canny and intelligent Adam Bosch--a man who will otherwise almost certainly be the source of her undoing.
Cara isn't superhuman; she's imperfect, sometimes selfish, tough, and occasionally she's wonderfully vulnerable. I loved her as an unlikely heroine, and I loved that it wasn't too easy for her to attempt to address complex issues within the multiverse.
For my full review of this book, please see The Space Between Worlds.
03 In a Holidaze by Christina Lauren
In a Holidaze is a romantic holiday time twist with sexy interludes and a reliably happy ending.
Twentysomething Mae is spending the holidays yet again with her parents' college friends and their families. She's not satisfied in her job, she's unwillingly single, she still lives with her parents--and she just kissed the wrong boy, the younger brother of her true obsession.
In despair about having had a rotten holiday and realizing that future holidays at her favorite place in the world are now in jeopardy, Mae makes a plea to the universe to show her what would truly make her happy. Suddenly she's plunged back in time to begin the holiday anew and try to get things right, Groundhog Day-style.
I fought a little irritation at the start with what felt like too-cute in-process inside jokes between the characters--I'd rather watch interpersonal intimacies unfold than be thrust into scenes serving as shorthand for "this is idyllic and you should love it."
Click here for my full review of In a Holidaze.
04 One Italian Summer by Rebecca Serle
Rebecca Serle's love letter to Italy plays with time to allow a grieving young woman to know her mother at her same age, inspiring heartwarming realizations.
Katy is deeply grieving while questioning her own life, including her marriage to a kind man. She is determined to take the trip to Italy she and her mother had optimistically planned during her mom's illness, and she's set on revisiting the places her mom has raved about since Katy was a child.
Katy also begins to recognize what the reader might notice early on: that her intense lifetime reliance on her mother in all areas of her life has left her without the benefit of independence, decision-making, and the strength that autonomy (and mistakes) build in a person.
When Katy wakes up one day faced with her actual own mother standing in her hotel lobby in the prime of her youth, she wonders if she's hallucinating. But it all seems so real. As days pass, Katy realizes she seems to have been been gifted with an opportunity to know her mother in a way that seemed impossible. And if she can cope with her own sadness and dive into the unfathomable experience, she just might learn valuable lessons about herself and her own character too.
For my full review, check out One Italian Summer.
05 Chosen Ones (Chosen Ones #1) by Veronica Roth
Sloane is a perfectly imperfect heroine and things aren't entirely what they seem in Roth's first novel for adults.
Things aren’t entirely what they seem in Veronica Roth’s version of Earth in Chosen Ones, both in terms of heroes' and villains’ roles as well as these characters’ understanding (and gaps in understanding) the situation at hand.
Sloane is a perfectly imperfect heroine. She’s expected to play the games of the media and stick fast to the identity that her fame as a Chosen One has thrust upon her. But she is incapable of BS and full of rage, fear, unquenched revenge fantasies, vulnerability, and the sometimes inconvenient drive to live truthfully and fully.
Roth could have potentially pulled back on the messy, complicated, partial resolution among multiple worlds toward the end for a simpler step forward but didn’t take an easier way out. I’m not sure where it leaves us for the second book, but I can’t wait to find out.
For my full review of this book, see Chosen Ones.
06 Goddess in the Machine by Lora Beth Johnson
Robots, time travel, teen angst, and this gorgeous cover. Yes to all of this. I didn't anticipate the twists Johnson provides, and I was delighted by each of them.
Goddess in the Machine is more than just a gorgeous cover. Lora Beth Johnson had me hooked immediately by the premise and Andra's voice.
Teenage Andra finally wakes up after being cryogenically preserved for a century-long journey to a new planet. She's a little creaky and sore, sure, but she's ready to be reunited with the team, which includes her mother and the rest of her family, plus many others involved in the complex project. They'll begin the work of bravely populating and building a new life on this planet.
Except...Andra soon realizes she wasn't sleeping for 100 years. She was asleep for 1,000.
The people, terrain, and language are not what she studied for or expected, everyone she once knew has already lived and died--oh, and the general population, whoever they are, thinks she's a goddess, and they've been waiting excitedly for her to wake up and save them.
I didn't anticipate the twist/double twist here, and I loved being surprised again and again. For my full review, please see Goddess in the Machine.