Margarita Montimore, Brittany Pressley: Oona Out of Order (2020, Macmillan Audio)
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Published March 1, 2020 by Macmillan Audio.
A remarkably inventive novel that explores what it means to live a life fully in the moment, even if those moments are out of order.
It’s New Year’s Eve 1982, and Oona Lockhart has her whole life before her. At the stroke of midnight she will turn nineteen, and the year ahead promises to be one of consequence. Should she go to London to study economics, or remain at home in Brooklyn to pursue her passion for music and be with her boyfriend? As the countdown to the New Year begins, Oona faints and awakens thirty-two years in the future in her fifty-one-year-old body. Greeted by a friendly stranger in a beautiful house she’s told is her own, Oona learns that with each passing year she will leap to another age at random. And so begins Oona Out of Order...
Hopping through decades, pop culture fads, and much-needed stock tips, …
A remarkably inventive novel that explores what it means to live a life fully in the moment, even if those moments are out of order.
It’s New Year’s Eve 1982, and Oona Lockhart has her whole life before her. At the stroke of midnight she will turn nineteen, and the year ahead promises to be one of consequence. Should she go to London to study economics, or remain at home in Brooklyn to pursue her passion for music and be with her boyfriend? As the countdown to the New Year begins, Oona faints and awakens thirty-two years in the future in her fifty-one-year-old body. Greeted by a friendly stranger in a beautiful house she’s told is her own, Oona learns that with each passing year she will leap to another age at random. And so begins Oona Out of Order...
Hopping through decades, pop culture fads, and much-needed stock tips, Oona is still a young woman on the inside but ever changing on the outside. Who will she be next year? Philanthropist? Club Kid? World traveler? Wife to a man she’s never met? Surprising, magical, and heart-wrenching, Margarita Montimore has crafted an unforgettable story about the burdens of time, the endurance of love, and the power of family.
Light and easy, digs at questions of family and relationship and acceptance of our pasts. The narrowly defined and mysterious time travel is central and structuring, but also somehow gets out of the way for interesting main characters to develop.
3.5 stars, rounding up. When a time travel book is well-executed, it is a delight. This one has a bit of a chick lit vibe that keeps it from being great, but the premise is fun and well-executed, even if a bit confusing at times. (There is a desire to go back and read the chapters sequenced chronologically to see if they hold up when Oona is IN order – but the events aren't so compelling that I'd spend time doing that.) Overall, a well-done trollop through time with a good bit of mystery and twists lurking in the pages.
I like a good twist on time travel, and this book is definitely that. Oona jumps through the years of her life, and the book never delves too deeply into the questions of how or why it happens. The story raises many questions: can she change her fate, or is any attempt to do so doomed? Are there multiple stories of her life? How did this start - how could there have already been an Oona who lived the previous year when she does her first jump? Is everything predestined? Do we have free will? In the end, it's left to the readers to find our own answers to these questions, and enjoy the story as we go along. Lots of good music gets a nod, too.
I enjoy books that play with time and timelines. This one was okay. It fell a bit flat at times, but was a quick enough read that I don't feel I invested too much into it.
