Time Travel for Love and Profit

by Sarah Lariviere

When Nephele has a terrible freshman year, she does the only logical thing for a math prodigy like herself: she invents a time travel app so she can go back and do it again (and again, and again) in this funny love story, Groundhog Day for the iPhone generation.

Fourteen-year-old Nephele used to have friends. Well, she had a friend. That friend made the adjustment to high school easily, leaving Nephele behind in the process. And as Nephele looks ahead, all she can see is three very lonely years.

Nephele is also a whip-smart lover of math and science, so she makes a plan. Step one: invent time travel. Step two: go back in time, have a do-over of 9th grade, crack the code on making friends and become beloved and popular.

Does it work? Sort of. Nephele does travel through time, but not the way she planned--she's created a time loop, and she's the only one looping. And she keeps looping, for ten years, always alone. Now, facing ninth grade for the tenth time, Nephele knows what to expect. Or so she thinks. She didn't anticipate that her new teacher would be a boy from her long ago ninth grade class, now a grown man; that she would finally make a new friend, after ten years. And, she couldn't have pictured someone like Jazz, with his deep violet eyes, goofy magic tricks and the quietly intense way he sees her. After ten freshman years, she still has a lot more to learn. But now that she's finally figured out how to go back, has she found something worth staying for?

• ISBN10: 0593174216
• ISBN13: 9780593174210
• Publish Date: 26 January 2021
• Publish Status: Active
• Publish Country: US
• Publisher: Random House USA Inc
• Imprint: Knopf Books for Young Readers
• Format: Hardcover (Library Binding)
• Pages: 320
• Language: English
• URL: https://penguinrandomhouse.com/books/isbn/9780593174210

Reviews

[Terri M. LeBlanc]

This was a speedy time travel read, but I wouldn't say I particularly liked it. The concept is fun, but the reason behind Nephele's reason for going back in time just didn't work for me because there was no emotional context something just happened…off the pages…and the MC decides the only way to solve it is to go back time. And when she gets there, she seems to abandon her original reason for going back in time pretty quickly.

So this isn't necessarily a bad book. It was fun to read. But in terms of being engaged with the story and the characters, not so much.

I received this book from the publisher in exchange for an honest review.