Oona Out Of Order

Cover depicts woman in different ages of her life; all out of order.
Margarita Montimore
Star Rating
★★★★★
Reviewer's Rating
Jun 4, 2021

If you are a fan of The Time Traveler's Wife,  Eternal Sunshine of the Spotless Mind, and/or The Two Lives of Lydia Bird you should give Oona Out of Order a try.  (And if you haven't checked out any of the previously mentioned titles, you should!)  The novel was published in the early part of 2020 (in the Before Times) and may have slipped by unnoticed.  It's a hard book to explain because time travel but not in your typical sense and yet it was easy to fall in love with Oona and her story.

"By turns tragic and triumphant, heartbreakingly poignant and joyful, this is ultimately an uplifting and redemptive read."
The Guardian
 

It's New Year's Eve 1982 and at the stroke of midnight Oona Lockhart will turn 19.  She has some big decisions to make.  Should she go to school in London like she's dreamed about her whole life or stay in Brooklyn with her boyfriend and their band?  Such dilemmas make Oona seek out a quiet spot to rest at her very own NYE/Birthday party and when she wakes up, she's in a beautiful home with a stranger telling her that not only is the home somehow hers but that she's also 51.

Oona learns that with each passing year she will jump time to another year of her life.  Out of order.  With no idea what year she'll be transported to or what the previous/future versions of herself have done, she will need all of her wits and the help of that kind stranger to make sense of when she is while she tries to also understand who she is.  

The author does a brilliant job of taking a complicated premise and giving it a realness in such a beautifully written way.  Oona Out of Order delivers a life well lived and well loved, just out of order.

 

Reviewed by Heather C
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