“Make your life more about letting in the good things than preventing the bad things.”
The moment Oona turns 19, as she’s kissing the love of her life, she is whisked from her body into herself at the age of 51. She time travels 32 years into the future. Once there, she finds out from her personal assistant that she time travels every year at the stroke of midnight on New Year’s Eve to another time in her adult life. Once the shock wears off, she tries to see the good in what her life will be like. However, the loss of friendships and love during the time shifts wears down on her soul. One small compensation for her is that she is rich enough to do or buy whatever she wants due to strategic stock market investments through the years.
I saw that Oona Out of Order was a popular book right now, and the storyline seemed interesting, so I added it to my to-read list. It was several weeks before a copy was available from my library as an ebook. I really enjoyed The Time Traveler’s Wife by Audrey Niffeneger, so I was looking forward to reading a time travel book from a different perspective. Oona remembers everything she has experienced when she travels.
In each year explored in Oona Out of Order, she faces losing someone she loves, learning something significant about her past and future and forging new relationships. While the book only covers a handful of her traveling years, it covers some very significant events in her life. The book lends itself to trying to answer the question of whether we would be better off if we knew what was going to happen to us. Would we change the bad if we could? Or should we embrace life with all its good and bad parts?
I enjoyed Oona Out of Order, but I was left wishing it covered more of her years. I really wanted to know more about what she did in some of the other significant events that are mentioned in the book. The book is also meant for mature readers. If you liked The Time Traveler’s Wife, though, you will like Oona Out of Order. It would make a great book club book as it brings up several topics for discussion.
What year would you want to travel back or forward to in your life? Share in the comments!