Read on my blog here.

I received a copy through NetGalley in exchange for an honest review.

I have so many thoughts about this book. It is easily one of my new favourites, and yet there was a huge thing that bothered me so much that I cannot give it the full 5 stars.

First, let me talk about my expectations. The cover was a little strange, since it had an old-timey feel and made me think of an elderly couple instead of two young women in modern time? But hey, time travel and f/f romance, here I come!

From the beginning, I was absolutely taken in and in love with the characters. Eva and Casey were alive and amazing, their relationship (originally a friendship) was supportive, the scenes between them were heartfelt, real, and beautiful. I’m sure you kind of guessed from this paragraph, but I absolutely adored their romance.

Without spoiling much of the book, Casey and Eva have been friends since they were twelve, and could have gotten together in high school… only things went wrong, and they finally reconnect several years later, as young adults. They have both changed a lot and they are both dealing with their own trauma (which was mostly realistic and well-handled and amazing to see!), but they can finally act on their feelings! Their relationship isn’t perfect, but it has realistic troubles and conflicts, and at least one of them is sure they can all work it out.

Sounds great, right? Okay, here’s the part where it went wrong for me.

First, let me quote the blurb at you:

What would you do if you could go back in time and change your past?

For Eva Caldwell that question is a no-brainer. (…) She’d gladly go back and change it all. When her uncle passes, Eva discovers he created a time machine. (…)

Will Eva choose to save her parents’ lives or take a chance on the love of a lifetime?

I cut some parts to make it shorter, but it’s clear that this book is about time travel, right? Well, not exactly. Eva finds her uncle’s time machine mentioned in the blurb at 75% in the ebook. That’s… that’s the last quarter of the book! Don’t get me wrong, you can see from the beginning of this review that I absolutely adored the first three quarters – but it was a cute contemporary romance without any mention of time travel, and my brain just kept going, okay, but where’s the action promised in the blurb and the prologue? That constant anticipation ruined my enjoyment of a good percentage of the book. It was a good and enjoyable story… but it was not the story I signed up for.

I can’t really talk about the last quarter of the book without giving tons of spoilers, so let me just say this: it ends very abruptly, and I was ready to throw my phone (on which I was reading) across the room. Thankfully, there’s an epilogue! … And what an epilogue it is. Pros: it actually gives some closure and even explains why the time travel came so late in the book, although it didn’t erase the annoyance I felt when it kept not coming. And the twist in this epilogue, well… it’s one that you can both love or hate, and I am a little on the fence on which crowd I’m in. I’m leaning more towards positive – it was a clever idea, although I feel like the pacing (or at least the damn misleading blurb) could have been solved better.

The next paragraph is going to be spoilers because I need to talk about this, so if you don’t want them then skip it somehow:

Part of the reason why I was so pissed at the ending is that Eva gives Casey no choice or closure. Oh sure, it works out well for them in the new timeline (if you interpret it as a new timeline and not as the original one being fiction), but what about Casey in the old timeline? She was so willing to work things out with Eva, and while Eva said she was doing it for Casey too – she never asked Casey about it or gave her any kind of explanation. She only disappeared, and given how bad Casey got the last time she did that… It’s not looking good. Ultimately, Lizzy was right about Eva and I hated it.

In summary: I loved the first three quarters of the book, even though it really wasn’t what I signed up for. I have some serious problems with the ending/the time travel plotline as well as the pacing of the book, so I cannot give it five stars – but rest assured, this is still one of the best books I read this year. (Which might not be saying much in February, but shh.)

Content warnings: abusive guardian, PTSD, alcoholism
Sex scenes: two explicit sex scenes (at around 46% and 91% in the ebook) and some explicit sexting

My rating: ★★★★☆