Gimme a Call

by Sarah Mlynowski

Who better to take advice from than your future self? This hilarious novel from the author of Ten Things We Did (And Probably Shouldn't Have), Don't Even Think About It, and the Magic in Manhattan series is sweet, entertaining, and all-too-relatable.  

A new life is just a phone call away!

Devi's life isn't turning out at all like she wanted. She wasted the past three years going out with Bryan—cute, adorable, break-your-heart Bryan. Devi let her friendships fade, blew off studying, didn't join any clubs . . . and now that Bryan has broken up with her, she has nothing left.

Not even her stupid cell phone—she dropped it in the mall fountain. Now it only calls one number . . . hers. At age fourteen, three years ago!

Once Devi gets over the shock—and convinces her younger self that she isn't some wacko—she realizes that she's been given an awesome gift. She can tell herself all the right things to do . . . because she's already done all the wrong ones! 

Except . . .what if getting what you think you want changes everything?


"Mlynowski is in peak form: an outrageous concept, plot jammed with twists, a laugh on every page, and a heroine — no, two heroines in one! — you completely connect with." —E. Lockhart, New York Times bestselling author of Genuine Fraud and We Were Liars

"Read this fast-paced, absorbing, and sweet story to find out what happens when senior-year wisdom meets starry-eyed freshman dreams!" —Melissa de la Cruz, New York Times bestselling author of The Isle of the Lost, Blue Bloods, and Alex and Eliza

"A warm, wonderful (and hilarious!) story about learning to be your own hero. I ♥ this book like crazy!!" —Lauren Myracle, New York Times bestselling author of TTYL and Twelve

• ISBN10: 0385735898
• ISBN13: 9780385735896
• Publish Date: 24 May 2011 (first published 1 January 2010)
• Publish Status: Inactive
• Out of Print: 5 June 2024
• Publish Country: US
• Imprint: Ember
• Format: Paperback (US Trade)
• Pages: 320
• Language: English
• URL: https://penguinrandomhouse.com/books/isbn/9780385735896

Reviews

[wyvernfriend]

While fairly unexceptional in concept, girl drops phone in fountain and discovers that she can contact her 3 years younger self, actions definitely have serious consequences in this story and the actions having consequences are consistent within the plot.

A story about friends and friendship and about being mono-focused, that having fun is sometimes more important than grades and that you are often a product of small decisions that can cascade.

[Stephanie]

This was a fun and cute audiobook to listen to while I was at work, but the Senior Devi annoyed me, to the point where I pretty much loved to hate her. I definitely enjoyed Freshman Devi a lot more and felt sorry for her. There were also moments in the story that were very predictable, but I got out of the audiobook what I wanted, an easy way to make work a little more bearable.

[Rowena]

I’ve been wanting to read this book for a while now and haven’t gotten around to it until now. I haven’t read too many books by Mlynowski but after reading this one, I’m definitely curious for more.

Imagine you’re a senior in high school and you just broke up with your boyfriend, the boy you’ve been with since you were a freshman in high school and you’re hurting. To top things off, you drop your cell phone into the fountain at the mall and it works but you can only call yourself…three years ago. If you can imagine that, then you’ll jump right into the thick of things with this book.

Devi is a senior, just broke up with her boyfriend and wishes that she never met him so that she wouldn’t know how much it’d hurt to lose him the way that she has. When her cell phone starts acting wonky and starts calling her own cell phone from three years ago (before she met Bryan), she thinks that this is her chance to change things so that she’ll have a better senior year so she gives Freshman Devi a whole lot of work to do.

It was funny because Senior Devi kept waking up to some new life because Freshman Devi was making a whole lot of different choices and it made me laugh.

This isn’t a book that takes itself too seriously and I really liked that about this one. It was fun, it was cute and even though Senior Devi got on my nerves because she was so hot damn bossy, I still liked this one. There were many times when I wanted to strangle Senior Devi for making Freshman Devi work so hard and when Freshman Devi stands up for herself, I grinned like a crazy person because I kept thinking, “FINALLY!”

Overall, this book was good. I would definitely recommend this book to people looking for a fun, quirky read with great characters. This one fits that bill.

[Leah]

17 year-old Devi Banks has been having a bit of a hard time lately, she's been dumped by her boyfriend of four years Bryan, she's lost all of her friends and the only college she's been accepted to is known as "Stupid State" to everyone who has heard of it. After Devi drops her phone into a fountain, she realises that she can talk to her 14-year-old self. She realises she can use her new found ability to warn her 14-year-old self from doing all of the things she wished she could change, including not falling in love Bryan. But changing the past isn't as easy as Devi thinks and there's a danger she might just try and change the past too much and end up worse off than when she started.

I have to admit that I decided to buy Gimme A Call on a whim. I've never read any of Sarah's previous books although I have heard about her chick lit books. However after seeing a lot of people saying they loved the sound of Gimme A Call, a teenage novel by Sarah, I looked it up and thought it sounded like a great read so I decided to pre-order it for myself. I wasn't too sure if I'd read it as soon as it arrived but I decided to try the first three pages to see if it was really a book I wanted to read and I was immediately hooked.

I've only read one other book about being able to change the lives of the characters by the means of a younger/older self and that was Alexandra Potter's book Who's That Girl?. I wasn't a huge fan of the book so I obviously approached Gimme A Call with some trepidation, wondering how Sarah Mlynowski would approach the entire concept. Sarah's version comes in the form of 17-year-old Devi being able to contact her 14-year-old self via her mobile phone, after she drops it into a fountain. I thought it was an interesting way of doing things and was very intrigued as to how it would all pan out. The book is told in alternating chapters from both 17-year-old Devi and 14-year-old Devi's point of view. To save on confusion, 17-year-old Devi becomes Ivy and 14-year-old Devi becomes Frosh which helps to tell the difference between the two and there's also a font change which also divides the two narratives from each other.

For Ivy, the chance to change her current life is a welcome one as when we first meet her she's friendless, boyfriendless and due to her low grades has only been accepted to a small college so the ability to re-do everything makes her incredibly excited. Frosh, on the other hand, doesn't believe that Ivy is indeed her older self and refuses to believe it, thinking it's some kind of stalker-girl. Ivy eventually manages to make Frosh believe that she tells the truth and Ivy, as expected, starts to tell Frosh all of the things she should avoid. Of course, changing the past isn't all it's cracked up to be and it appears that every time Ivy makes Frosh differ from the path Ivy followed herself, it immediately makes changes to Ivy's current life causing some strange results.

Both Ivy and Frosh were incredibly interesting characters. Yes, they are essentially one and the same, but they are also so different because they're obviously three years apart from each other. I think Ivy (older Devi) was a little bit neurotic when it came to ordering Frosh (younger Devi) around. I could totally understand why; after being dumped by Bryan she's obviously hurting and wants to try and make it better by telling Frosh to never date him. In turn, that makes Frosh mildly rebellious - who is Ivy to tell her what to do after all. It makes an interesting dynamic between the pair. They're the only two main characters in the book, really. Bryan, Devi's boyfriend, does make regular appearances as well as their joint friends/ex-friends. But really the book revolves solely around the older and younger Devi.

Sarah's writing is incredibly readable and I whizzed through the book at quite a pace. Because the book is told from both Ivy & Frosh's perspective it helps keep the tale moving along as each new different path Frosh decides to take changes Ivy's world, some things for the better, some things for the worse, and some things for the totally unexpected. The biggest problem I thought I might encounter throughout the book was the ending of Gimme A Call. How do you end a book like this? With a reasonable explanation and an ending that doesn't make you want to tear your hair out? Well, I think Sarah managed the ending perfectly. It didn't seem twee or forced and I thought the ending was very well done and it really worked for me.

Gimme A Call was a really good read and I would hugely recommend it to any young adult fan. It was a quick and easy read and had a wonderful premise that Sarah Mlynowski pulled off with aplomb. I will certainly be looking out for more of Sarah's books and I really hope she's working on her next young adult book because Gimme A Call was fabo (as Devi says).