What a great book! Oona is just a regular girl trying to live through her life when all of a sudden she has to live her life out of order!

It made me realize how no matter what is happening in our life we have to live that year to the best of our ability.

Almost like a self help book told through a fictional story. Talks about mental health, aging, living in the now, making the best out of what you have.

I loved this book so much and I wish I could have seen some more years with Oonas time jump now that she is kinda getting use to it.

Thanks to NetGalley and Flatiron Books for this e-arc in exchange for an honest review.

This is a story about a young women who somehow time travels to different ages of her own life every time she has a birthday. I have read/watched quite a few time travel books/films and never heard of one like this. I found it so entertaining and fun.

I absolutely loved Oona and felt empathy for all the different emotions she experienced while jumping around to different parts of her life. One plot twist I kind of expected and figured out toward the beginning but it was just a scratch off the top of a deeper storyline. I loved it!

This book will make you think about your own life and how you are living it--you can't help but to get introspective. I also was very reminiscent over the different decades she bounced between (yay, 1990's nostalgia!). I was so sad once the book ended and yet felt it was the best time/way to end the story. Somehow this book gave me the same feelings as Taylor Jenkins Reid's THE SEVEN HUSBANDS OF EVELYN HUGO--I can't stop thinking about Oona and her story.

I definitely plan on purchasing the physical book copy of this and rereading it sometime soon. This was a blast!

An EASY 5/5 rating for me

Montimore has written a very inventive time travel novel. At the stroke of midnight New Years Eve 1982, Oona is celebrating her 19th Birthday, when she feels faint and wakes up as a 51 year old woman. Each year on her birthday, Oona lives her life never knowing how old she will be when she comes to. A fun read and good message to enjoy the present moment. Oona has no choice but to go with the flow and after all, no one can really control all aspects of their life. Recommended.

This was such an interesting premise- Oona lives her life out of order, every New Years’ Day “leaping” to a new year in her life. I really liked reading and listening to the audiobook. At times, I got very frustrated with Oona and the choices she made in her life, knowing she had this condition. But overall, I really enjoyed this book-

I liked it a lot. A less romantic Time Travelers Wife. Don't think too much about the logistics. I found it easy to follow the story despite the back and forth in time.

enjoyable read that is digestible, hard to put down, and an emotional journey. I think this is a great recommendation for book clubs and patrons.

At the stroke of midnight on New Year's Eve, Oona is suddenly transported to an older version of her. Even though she turned 19 on January 1st, 1982, she finds herself in the body of the 51-year-old Oona in 2015. After this, each year on Oona's birthday, she makes another leap to another age of herself, sometimes older and sometimes younger. Oona no longer lives her life in chronological order. Through the trials of waking up each year in a new version of herself, she realizes that she can't change any parts of life and that it is critical she experiences the bad in addition to the good, otherwise it would be a boring, bland life.

I've always been curious about time-travel and parallel timelines/universes, so is no surprise I loved this book. I can relate with Oona's revelation that there will be good times AND bad times and a full life requires you experience everything.

I only wish there would have been an epilogue detailing each of Oona's years and the ups and downs she experienced.

Oona Lockhart woke up on the morning of her nineteenth birthday to discover that it was not 1983 and she is in the body of a fifty-one-year-old woman. Gone are her friends, gone is her boyfriend from 1982. She is given a letter from herself saying that she has been living her life out of order. When she wakes up every year on her birthday, she doesn't know what year it is until she finds the letter she leaves for herself. One year she is her fifties trying to make sense of time. Another year she is married to a younger man who is using her for her money. And yet another year she is a club kid who partakes in too much sex, drugs, and rock-n-roll. With each birthday, there is a new leap and in a new confusing world, Oona seeks out the things she is most familiar with, like her mother. And her personal assistant, Kenzie. But what she really wants is happiness and love. Will she ever find the happiness she craves?

I was a little surprised at how much I enjoyed Oona Out of Order. Oona was a quirky character in an incredibly unique situation. The first leap she made introduced her to Kenzie and their relationship was a good one. Every leap after that Oona saught Kenzie out, but really I think she was seeking out something familiar and Kenzie was familiar. Her mother was familiar to her. And her music was familiar to her. Through every era and every age, Oona had her music to comfort and soothe her. There was one big surprise that was revealed during Oona leaps and it made me gasp out loud. -CLICK HERE FOR SPOILERS There wasn't any big problem solved at the end, Oona didn't wake up to find it all a dream, but it did feel like Oona was going to be okay. And I was glad about that.

Bottom Line - Oona Out of Order was a fun break from my regular mysteries and psychological thrillers. It was fun and enjoyable, but it left me wanting to follow Oona through all of the years.

Details:

Oona Out of Order by Margarita Montimore
On Instagram
Pages:352
Publisher: Flatiron Books
Publication Date: 2/25/2020
Buy it Here!
Thank you to NetGalley for the book in exchange for a review.

I love time travel stories and this one certainly delivered. It was incentive and original. I purchased a copy for my sister after reading it!

Oh, this is a delightful book, easy to be consumed in one day. Oona is celebrating New Year’s Eve in 1982, just before her 19th birthday. Then her live out of order when at 12:01am on January 1st, she wakes up in a different year of her life. And those years bring different challenges and loves and enjoyments. I am so glad I’m not Oona having to live my life out of order…. much more challenging than living the same Groundhog’s day over and over.

Clear aside your afternoon and prepare to follow Oona as she tries to navigate her life as she skips from decade to decade, never knowing on January 1st just where she will wake up. Though alternate life books seem to be big this past year, Oona Out of Order brings a unique twist in the fact that there aren't two parallel lives. To be honest, the rules of Oona's time travel shall we say got a little confusing. Keeping track of what future Oona vs. present day Oona knew via her letters & what loved ones told her made me feel like I needed a giant crime scene map to keep track of everything. Eventually, I just surrendered to the plot device and didn't worry so much about the logistics. Two of Oona's relationships gave me pause. I didn't quite get a feel that her romance with Dale was the Great Love of Her Life. You know, the ones songs and poems & novels are written about. Yes, it seemed like she loved him but I wish we had spent a bit more time in their relationship before Oona went on her time travel journal. And Edward--oh Edward. Once I knew how their relationship ended up, I was less interested in the origin story, so that section dragged a little for me. Otherwise, this is a fresh take about love, life and the family and relationships we keep coming back to.

This was a fun read!! I really enjoyed the story, though I wish more time and attention had been paid to the storyline with Oona going to Europe, having her hit, and finding out she was pregnant. I’d love to have spent more time with Oona at other ages, and have learned what happened to her friends from the club kid days, than so long with that jerk husband of hers. I’m also curious whether her dad also time traveled or WHY this was happening to her.

Idea: Five stars
Execution: Two stars

The concept of Oona Out of Order is really unique. Oona, on her 19th birthday, wakes up in the body of her 51 year old self. She proceeds to continue "leaping" every year (her birthday is January 1st) to a different year of her life, all out of order.

Sounds pretty interesting? Well, there are so many questions that are just not addressed. Why does this happen? How does no one realize that she's not the same person she was the year before? How does anyone believe that she has a "memory disorder"? How does the rest of her family live everything all the way through in normal order but then talk to her and seemingly know things about the future? You have to suspend a lot of reality in order to get through this. There is no sci-fi element although I was left hoping there was. I just wanted a little more explanation.

OONA OUT OF ORDER by Margarita Montimore is a Library Reads selection and received starred reviews from both Booklist and Library Journal. If you are an adult looking for a slightly more sophisticated beach read, you, too, might enjoy this title. Oona travels to a new year each time her birthday rolls around, going from 18 to 51 externally and then back to 27 and so on. Even though I did enjoy the beginning of this story and initially found the Oona's adventures to be a welcome escape, I had difficulty finishing this book and came to actively dislike the characters and Oona's poor choices. Given the emphasis on drugs and unprotected sex (for example, 1991 for Oona was "a year of color, artificial highs and staged recklessness," "a year of frivolity," "a year of parties, and drugs and trysts, some of which had been fun, but all of which had been meaningless"), I would not recommend this title to my high school students. They have so many more titles from which to choose instead.

[3.5 stars rounded up]

This was a delight. I wasn’t so sure about the premise, but got into it pretty quickly. And just about the moment when the jumping back and forth in time was getting a bit tedious, things got shaken up in an interesting way I didn’t see coming. I loved the characters, and enjoyed how it all came together. Definitely recommend if you’re looking for a romp and some easy reading.

This was a great twist on the traditional time travel read. Each New Year's Eve, Oona's birthday, she wakes up in a different year of her life. Each jump is jarring for Oona, who never really learns why this is happening to her. She also learns a little more about her life with each jump, soon realizing that she has to ride it out rather than try to change a fate that's already been written.

There's very little that I didn't love about Oona Out of Order. It's original and emotional and a book that I won't quickly get over. I could honestly talk about the book for days without end, but it would be so hard to do so without spoiling the reader.

It was easy to see myself in Oona. Feeling so young but seeing an old(er) person in the mirror. The melancholy that follows you throughout life as you move onto something new. Failed relationships that leave a mark. How our mother is our mother no matter how old (or young) we are. It was clear, that regardless of time travel, we will face the things that Oona faced, though not out of order. Of course there are also moments that only a time traveler could experience which lent a bit of science fiction to the story.

I definitely recommend Oona Out of Order!

I was intrigued by the idea of a woman's life lived not in chronological order. Maybe I am simple-minded but at time the concept hurt my brain. I struggled at times with the fact that Oona was a mental age but her body was a different age. On top of that, then sometimes she knew people but they didn't know her because she had lived a previous year already.

This book is definitely entertaining. I was hard not to get frustrated with Oona when she repeatedly made similar bad decisions. But as a reader, we had the knowledge of how her life actually was because she had jumped to a previous year. Oona and us as readers, knew the outcome to future events even though the current day Oona did not. See what I mean. It is a lot to wrap your brain around.

The premise of the book was definitely original.

Oona Out of Order is the perfect mixture of romance, coming of age, pop culture and oh yeah, time travel! I was a bit skeptical about the whole time travel aspect but the relatable character of Oona and the fabulous storyline hooked me from the first page. It also made me stop and think. What would my 19 year old self think if it woke up in my 53 year old body? What would my 53 year old self tell my younger self? Loved this book! I would love to see it as a tv series!

In Oona Out of Order, Oona lives “her life like an M.C. Escher drawing, years like staircases turning in on themselves to form a tangible but implausible whole.”

Beginning on her nineteenth birthday New Year’s Day in 1982, Oona jumps forward or backwards on her own life’s timeline. For example when she jumps from 18 to 51, her body aches and her wrinkles surprise her when she looks into the mirror. Despite leaving letters to her future self, Oona leaves both the best and worst moments as surprises for herself each year. Only two other people know about her affliction-her mom and Kenzie, her assistant.

I adore this heartfelt tale of a woman forced to live her life one moment at a time. Oona Out of Order has humor, pathos, and human frailties aplenty. It is highly recommended for literary and women’s fiction readers. 5 stars!

Thanks to Flatiron Books and NetGalley for a copy in exchange for my honest review.