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I have been adamant on continuing the habit of reading over doom scrolling. It is much easier said than done, but damn did Jeneva Rose get me in a fucking chokehold with this novel. Initially I worried I was going to give up on the book because I found the main character, Alexis, to be utterly and completely annoying as she seemed to enjoy dwelling in self-deprecation. It wasn’t until I got to chapter three that I decided I wasn’t going to return it to the library that day.

What made the book more interesting and the character more tolerable at that point was that the author decided to break the traditional rules of time travel by having the Alexis come face to face with her own worst enemy and the person she blamed for the result of the shitty existence we first meet her in… Lexi- Alexis’ 18 year old self.

The majority of the book takes place in the early 2000s- a confusing and toxic time in society as a whole. The morals and standards of this time period left a lasting impression on the millennial psyche (if you know, you know) as many of us were left with skewed inner realities to navigate in a very superficial environment. Body image, anxiety, self-worth, and arrogance were at an all time high… Jeneva Rose managed to encapsulate these battlegrounds and approach them from the perspective of someone who has lived to see the other side while remembering what it was like to endure such a tumultuous time period.

I won’t spoil the book if any of you choose to read it, I will however say that I was impressed with how the author decided to approach the topics of holding ourselves accountable for our outcome in life, facing trauma head on, and healing our inner teenager. I thought I was going to be reading a fun and fluff time travel piece, rather I was faced with my own inner teenager and the compassion she needed in order to heal so that we could both move forward with our life.

I think it is pretty fucking easy for us to forget that while a lot of life can happen to us, how we choose to respond to those situations will be the determining factor of how we turn out long term. Rose did a fantastic job writing from the perspectives of both Alexis and Lexi; there was a certain layer of self-hatred that I think all readers can relate to (don’t lie to me or yourself by saying that you have never hated yourself… we all have) and the struggle to learn how to love oneself beyond the flaws we see in ourselves. Each version of our main character learns a great deal about herself as the story progresses, even during the moments when she doesn’t necessarily like herself.

This novel was almost like holding a mirror I didn’t want to make direct eye contact with. I was deeply annoyed with Alexis and Lexi throughout majority of the book, only to realize by the last 5-7 chapters that aspects of myself I had not yet come to terms with were the reason for my projected annoyance as well as the dissonance I was feeling. I found the end of Rose’s story satisfying due to the nature of how Alexis and Lexi were able to find healing in order to achieve the life they both knew they deserved. I would absolutely recommend this novel to anyone who needed a bit of comedic relief while journeying their inner teenager healing. While the story can be triggering in ways, this beautiful nostalgia piece was utterly inspiring.