Jen Calonita latest book tackles middle school, friendships and time travel.

The Retake is a great story

Zoe and Laura have been best friends for as long as they can remember, but lately, Zoe can feel Laura pulling away and hanging out with a new group of friends: the Drama Queens, as she calls them. After the worst first day of seventh grade EVER, Zoe finds a new app on her phone, The Retake app. The Retake app is filled with pictures of that she has uploaded on social media. With the touch of a button she is transported back in time to when her and Laura were still close. While on her journey of remaking the past, Zoe learns a few lessons in friendship and what it actually means to be a friend. Through the course of the book, and the Retake app, Zoe also forms a better relationship with her sister.

The way Jen Calonita writes the ups and downs of middle school in The Retake is very realistic, yet lighthearted. I would recommend this book for middle grade girls!


*I received an ARC on NetGalley!

I received an ARC of this book from NetGalley in exchange for an honest review.

This book was cute! It was a nice twist on time traveling and how friendships change as we get older. I really liked it!

Zoe Mitchell can't wait to spend more time with her best friend, Laura Lancaster, as seventh grade starts after almost a whole summer apart. She's noticed that Laura has been pulling away since the end of sixth grade, when she joined the school play and made new friends there. She works hard on planning a surprise birthday party for Laura with her family, but it's all for nothing when she sees Laura already having a birthday celebration on the beach with her new friends. One that Zoe wasn't invited to.
It isn't much better when school starts. Laura wants to quit the activities she and Zoe have always done together, like volleyball and STEM club. Zoe finds that it's now far easier to talk to her STEM friends, Reagan and Jada, then it is to her supposed "best" friend.
When Zoe gets her phone taken away in the hall, she gets it back at the end of the day from a mysterious temp at the front desk. She notices that a strange new app has been installed, looking similar to Instagram, but with no name. It contains every picture she and Laura have ever posted with each other. Zoe finds one of them together at a sleepover right before school got out, and makes a wish to go back to make Laura stay her close friend.
Soon she wakes up three months earlier, having been transported back in time to the sleepover. This time, she can save herself and Laura from embarrassment in front of the "drama queens." But Zoe's attempt to save Laura from an embarrassing dare completely backfire, and Laura is instantly mad at her.
The next thing she knows, Zoe is back in the present, but it's not the reality she remembered. Instead of Laura getting close to the Drama Queens, Zoe is now their new best friend, and none of them acknowledge Laura's existence anymore. Zoe realizes that the retake has actually made things worse, and keeps trying more to attempt to fix it. But after trying to redo the school's waterpark trip and their STEM presentation day, she finds that maybe second chances aren't always necessary.
What I liked: The realism with a slight supernatural element (I don't know whether to call this magical realism, because most magical realism involves more fantasy-type themes.) It reminded me of The Swap or Addie Bell's Secret to Growing Up, which were my favorite books in middle school, or the Aladdin M!X line.
What I didn't like: Laura's new friends (Ava, Sarah, Hyacinth, Marisol, Stephanie) felt too much like stereotypes. I guess not as much as the similar characters I used to read when I was Zoe's age (they're in theater rather than cheerleading and I don't remember any of them being blonde, and there isn't a leader) but other parts were just as overdone, such as their obsession with tanning or their constant use of hashtags. In fact, none of the captions or hashtags written on these girls' Instagram posts seemed like anything a 12/13-year-old would actually type in 2020. They were more like something their parents would. I also never see any teenagers post multiple times a day- that's what stories are for. They're referred to as "mean girls" but the only one I remember actually being mean is Ava. I don't think any of them actually had a problem with Zoe in her actual reality. It feels like every middle-school story about a girl has to involve "everyone cares about clothes and boys but me," and I'm sick of that. Even though Zoe was a good character and didn't pull the not-like-other-girls card. Also, why does every MG character who likes theater have to be a "mean girl?"

First sentence: I held my cell phone high in the air to get the optimal angle and snapped a photo of me sticking my tongue out. Then I sent it to my best friend, Laura, pleased that the picture was cropped so tight I wouldn’t give away my surprise.

Premise/plot: Zoe and Laura are best, best, best friends and always will be...won't they? This middle grade coming of age novel stars Zoe Mitchell. It's the dawn of seventh grade, and things aren't looking the greatest for these bffs. Zoe is worried--and rightly so--that her best friend has moved on during the summer. (Zoe vacationed with her family while Laura starred as Molly in a production of Annie and made a bunch of new friends.) The novel opens with drama...and stays consistently dramatic throughout as Zoe tries again and again and again and again and again--via a time travel app on her phone--to repair the friendship and set things "right." Is this friendship doomed? And will Zoe be able to make peace if it is? Are there other classmates with best friend potential?

My thoughts: I LOVE, LOVE, LOVE, LOVE, LOVE, LOVE, LOVE the premise of this one. I was fascinated with the idea of a time traveling app. (It would be DANGEROUS in real life, I am certain.) This time travel app works through the photos on her photo stream. The app can transport her to (and from) any moment(s) captured in photos. This gives her quite a few possibilities or opportunities to relive experiences and perhaps make changes. But all changes--no matter how small--have consequences. I am really so glad that we travel back to the future each time to see what those consequences are.

The premise worked for me. I found it fascinating, compelling, and relatable. Who wouldn't want chances to fix the past and "set things right"?!?! This one is focused exclusively on fixing or repairing a friendship that is falling apart.

What I ended up loving even more, however, is the relationship between the two sisters--Zoe and her older sister Taryn. I honestly can't say that family was the main emphasis in this one--but the sister relationship IS key. I loved seeing all the alternate futures where these two are closer...and how in seeking to restore her friendship with Laura...she's learning--albeit unawares--how to repair her friendship with her sister.

I thought this was a great coming of age story.

Meet ‘Groundhog Day’ in a virtual setting. Zoey fears her fading friendship with Laura more than she fears the first day of 7th grade. She subconsciously knows she and Laura are drifting apart, but is determined to keep their BFF status at all costs. On the first day of school, the mysterious office secretary cryptically tells her “see you tomorrow ....if you are here tomorrow,” and she discovers a new app on her phone. The app allows her to retake any picture in her Instagram feed, sending her back to the past to change what she needs or wants to change. As Zoey continues to frantically go back to different times to try to keep her friendship with Laura intact, she reluctantly begins to realize that people grow apart and find new interests and new friends.

Good middle age book about growing apart from friends, finding new friends and interests and being true to yourself.

I tried reading this book but I didn't get very far along in the book . I thought that this book would be good but its not for me at this time.

Zoe is apprehensive about the first day of seventh grade; she and her absolutely best friend Laura have had to spend the summer apart for various reasons, and they haven't reconnected for some of their necessary rituals such as discussing their first day outfits. Because she's been following Laura's social media feed, she can tell that Laura has been hanging out with some new friends while Zoe was away, and her brief interactions with Laura confirm that some of her priorities have shifted. For instance, the two were very involved with Future Cities and hoped for spots on the volleyball team, but being in dramatic productions seems more important to Laura now. After a disastrous first day of school that involves a spot on her white jeans and her phone being taken away, Zoe misses volleyball tryouts to just go home. Her older sister, Taryn, gives her a hard time about it, and her mother insists that she needs to try other things. Since Zoe's mom and Laura's mom are best friends, the two families (minus Laura's father, since her parents have recently divorced) have dinner together, but conversation is strained. When Zoe finds an app that mysteriously appeared on her phone while it was being help in the office, she selects a picture of a sleepover three months ago and hits the "back" button. She is transported to the sleepover, and tries to change things with Laura, as well as Ava, Hyacinth, and other girls. Things don't go quite the way she hopes, and she tries going to another point in time. Every time she thinks she can makes things different, she just makes them worse. Through these travels, however, she learns that she does really like Future Cities, that Clare is a far better friend than Laura, and that even when you are best friends with someone for a long time, you can still grow apart. Will Zoe be able to find a version of her middle school life that works for her?
Strengths: Issues with friends are such a large part of the middle school experience that they could be included in every single book in all genres and it wouldn't be too many tales of this. Zoe and Laura's relationship is absolutely typical, and it was fascinating to see how many ways things could go wrong. I especially liked the use of technology in the book; while this might date the book at some point, Instagram has been a big part of tween culture since at least 2012. Zoe knowing what Laura is up to when she is not with her is something that wouldn't have happened a few years ago, and is a big problem! Zoe's disocvery of herself and what she likes, as well as her appreciation of the better qualities of other classmates makes this very hopeful, and the fact that she realizes that she and Laura will remain friends on some level but are different enough that they won't be best friends is a great, mature example for tween readers to see. I love this author's Secrets of My Hollywood Life series.
Weaknesses: This was more invested in the friend drama than the time travel capabilities, which makes it perfect for actual tween readers, but disappointed me as an adult reader just a tiny bit. This is mainly because I desperately want to go back to September of 1979 and change my entire life and is not a fault of Ms. Calonita's writing!
What I really think: Definitely purchasing. I'm not sure why there aren't more time-travel-via-cell-phone books; there's a little of that in Jay Asher's The Future of Us, and of course Sarah Mlynowski's Gimme a Call (2010. 2010?! Wow. Seems like a read this just yesterday!) tackles this idea brilliantly.

A mysterious app on Zoe’s phone allows her to do-over past moments of her life that were documented in social media. But each time she tries to redo past incidents between her and her estranged best-friend, Zoe ends up having to face unintended consequences. This book raises a lot of good points about balancing the needs of a friendship while allowing yourself, and your friend, to explore separate interests and develop new relationships.

The concept of this novel will appeal to middle grade readers as they will relate to the desire for second chances. The exploration of friendship and changing relationships will engage young readers as well.

There are many time travel books but this one stood out for me. I liked how time changed -and so did the outcome - but really nothing changed. Leaving behind the past and moving forward to the unknown is scary at any age and especially in 7th grade. There is something to learn here for any age. We are all a little afraid of change but sometimes if we give it a try it can be a new kind of wonderful.
The author did a great job showing how we sometimes mold ourselves into someone that isn’t really true to ourselves. We all do it, all the time. But how much of ourselves are we giving up to fit in or get along with others.?
This is a great read for any age but especially for middle schoolers.