Opposite of Always
Jun. 13th, 2019 07:04 pm![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
psocopteraOpposite of Always, Justin A. Reynolds, 2019. I was excited about the concept - YA time loop romance! - and the cover (by Stephanie Singleton) was great, but, enh. Premise turned out to be more like "The Fault In Our Stars crossed with a criticism of Groundhog Day", and it kind of dragged, and the end was muddled (leading to some frustrating "was that supposed to be ambiguous or am I just confused" googling), and had some takes on relationship dynamics I really didn't care for. (If person A and B are dating, and their friend C then makes a move on B which B reciprocates such that B breaks up with A and starts dating C, everyone blaming C for "stealing" B erases the agency of B, grrr.) Also, a narrative choice in the penultimate chapter annoyed me and undermined the already marginal SFF-ness of the whole thing, which of course was part of what I was there for. I worry that saying "this really wasn't SFnal" is gatekeeping, especially when we're talking about a Black author and Black main characters and the shitty track record of SFFdom thereunto, but I also think I'm right that what Reynolds cared about here was the characters and the point that the time loop device let him make, and not the looping per se. (And I also think it's pretty clear that they weren't particularly trying to *market* this book as YA SFF; the cover quotes are from Becky Albertalli and Angie Thomas and the publishers are targeting it to fans of Nicola Yoon and John Green.)
(Spoilers about the penultimate chapter: After taking us through five loops, the narrator admits that actually those were composites of multiple loops and there were actually dozens and he tried more different things and gave up more times and, like, obviously a time loop story isn't going to show every loop, but playing them as the actual loops and then being like "haha I'm an unreliable narrator and majorly edited this experience", in a story that had previously never introduced unreliable-narratorness, is just weird. The subjective passage of time, contrasted to the stasis of the loop, is an important part of time-loop narratives! Especially in such an unusually long loop (four months long!), 20 months of subjective time vs 12+ years of subjective time is an important difference, if you're seriously engaging with the premise and not just using it to teach your Very Important Life Lesson! Hmph.)
(Spoilers about the penultimate chapter: After taking us through five loops, the narrator admits that actually those were composites of multiple loops and there were actually dozens and he tried more different things and gave up more times and, like, obviously a time loop story isn't going to show every loop, but playing them as the actual loops and then being like "haha I'm an unreliable narrator and majorly edited this experience", in a story that had previously never introduced unreliable-narratorness, is just weird. The subjective passage of time, contrasted to the stasis of the loop, is an important part of time-loop narratives! Especially in such an unusually long loop (four months long!), 20 months of subjective time vs 12+ years of subjective time is an important difference, if you're seriously engaging with the premise and not just using it to teach your Very Important Life Lesson! Hmph.)
