3 stars!

If you’re looking for a light, funny, and cute romance with mild science fiction elements and world-building designed to move the story forward, this book might be perfect for you. While I found the time-travel aspect intriguing—despite not usually being a fan of time-travel storylines—I still enjoyed how it was incorporated here.

That said, I felt both Joe and Esi’s characterizations were somewhat underdeveloped, making it harder to fully connect with them. The book also touches on Esi’s experience as a Black woman navigating predominantly white spaces, which I appreciated. However, while the narrative made an effort to address some of the challenges Black women face, it felt a bit superficial at times. I would have liked to see this explored in greater depth.

Overall, this was an enjoyable read and one I’d recommend to anyone in the mood for a fluffy romance with a dash of time travel.

I wasn’t sure what to expect when I started to read this ARC. I thought it had an interesting premise and message about fate and destiny. However, I was a little confused about the explanation of the time travel and how they were able to walk around so freely. It also felt like at every chapter, a few weeks or days passed. In my opinion, that took away from the urgency of the characters to solve the problem at hand. While Joe’s POV was okay, I think I would’ve also liked to see the main female character’s perspective. Overall, the story was interesting and follows a lot of the similar tropes we see in time travel stories. There have been a lot of them in the recent year. I wouldn’t say that this is a favorite, but it has its moments.

Very cute time travel love triangle from Catriona Silvey, author of Meet Me in Another Life. Like that novel, this has its fair share of contrivances and works at a pretty breakneck pace. But, despite the fact that most of the plot beats could probably be guessed after the first few pages (almost feels a little meta here: the future of this book feels set in stone when you start reading it!), it's really a joy to see it all come together in the end. It feels like every detail set up in the beginning has a payoff in the conclusion, which is pretty satisfying. This never dragged for me, but I will say that it's often hard to like the protagonist. Yeah, he had to learn his lessons, but it isn't until near the end that I was really rooting for him at all. And even then I think he still needs to prove himself some more for me to not side-eye him a little.

A rather light read, but I'm not complaining. I will read as many unabashedly romantic sci-fi stories from Silvey as she manages to write.

This was a cute quirky read. It didn't wow me too much though. The time travel aspect seemed SO far fetched and weird (especially Vera at the end?! lol). The characters were likable and flawed. I really liked Rob for some reason haha. But it was just okay for me. Too much worrying and focus on changing the future that it took away from enjoying the story for me. I did absolutely love the setting of Cambridge in the early 2000's and a big reason why I added an extra star to my rating.

⭐️⭐️⭐️.5 -This was a pretty fun and cute read, especially since I’m a sucker for time travel love stories. I would’ve liked to see more indications of the time travel element in the story, but it was quite subdued - very much like in the movie “About Time”; the time travel aspect in both media was more of a catalyst to just set the story in motion and wasn’t the center focus. I did like the messages we got from both despite the minute amount of sci/fi, that your future isn’t predetermined and it’s important to make the most of your time and cherish your loved ones in the present moment.

One issue I did have with the story was the pacing. It felt very off at times, since often throughout the book there were time skips of weeks at a time. With so much time just glossed over, it was quite off putting and disorienting. Because of this, I didn’t feel like I got a good visual of the love story that unfolded between Joe and Esi. There were beautiful moments here and there with heartfelt dialogues, but i didn’t quite see that adding up to the equation of their love story.

Overall I enjoyed this story, and would recommend this book to someone looking for a quick and fun read.

Thank you to NetGalley and the publisher for the e-ARC in exchange for my honest review.

I'm very glad I got the opportunity to read this ! I've never read anything quite like it and it was engrossing.
The characters were likeable, witty, and layered.
The time traveling-romance certainly wasn't on my bucket list for 2024- but I flew right through it !

La sinopsis me enganchó: viajes en el tiempo, expediciones a traves del tiempo, romance y comedia, ¡sí, por favor!

Disfruté la primera mitad del libro, pero la otra se me hizo tediosa, ya que la trama se estancó y las escenas con Diana resultaron forzadas y dolorosas.

Me hubiera gustado que Esi tuviera povs para poder conocerla mejor y saber qué pasaba por su cabeza cada vez que ayudaba a Joe con Diana, así como su reacción al enterarse de los multiversos, etc

Espero que la versión final incluya un epílogo.


Thanks to NetGalley, the publisher and the author for the ARC in exchange for an honest review.

This is a tough one for me to review. I absolutely loved Catriona Silvey’s debut novel, Meet Me in Another Life, so I was beyond thrilled to receive early access to this. It turned out to not be my cup of tea, but I do think it will have strong appeal to the right audience.

I think this novel may land best for readers who are looking for a light, humorous romance with some mild SF elements, and who will enjoy the mid-2000s Cambridge university setting and characters. I don’t think I’d recommend it to somebody who has read a ton of time travel books like I have, or to someone who is highly invested in how the time travel elements work; that is not the focus in this book, and time travel isn’t really explored beyond causing the event that sets the plot into motion. It’s a quick, breezy read that doesn’t necessarily hold up to a lot of scrutiny.

The thing that surprised me the most about this book was the prose, which was very, very different than in Silvey’s first book. It was fast and easy to read, but didn’t have the beauty or depth that I was anticipating. I’m sure this was a stylistic choice, and certainly it was a fast-paced “beach read” style-romance; assuming that’s what she was intending, she absolutely nailed it! And I think it will work really well for a lot of readers. But for myself, I found that I was missing the more reflective and beautiful style of prose I remembered from her prior novel.

For some readers, how this novel hits may be dependent on how much they connect with lead character Joe, an aimless college student whose greatest dream is to be a famous poet like Lord Byron, as well as how much they connect with the time period the book is set in. I didn’t mind the setting (except occasionally wondering if I was catching anachronisms or just incorrectly remembering when certain aspects of technology happened), but I found Joe to be rather grating and naive, and not in a “well-drawn character” way.

I liked the other main character, Esi, much better in concept, but unfortunately I didn’t think she was very well characterized either. She’s not given that much of an actual personality, and for me, some of the author’s choices didn’t work as I assume they were intended to. Esi is Black, and while I could tell the author was striving to include thoughtful details that centered Esi’s racial identity (such as talking to Joe about her experiences dealing with all-white environments, wearing hair bonnets to bed, spending time in Black spaces, etc), there were other moments that read a bit like “white woman tries to write about racism without fully understanding or engaging with it” to me. I am myself a white woman; I obviously don’t know how this would hit for other readers, but I’m assuming that if some of it made me cringe, others may feel similarly or more so depending on their own identity and experience.

All of that said, I really did appreciate the chance to read this early, and I’ll recommend it to folks I think are the right audience. I’ll definitely pick up Silvey’s next book too. Huge thanks to Catriona Silvey, William Morrow, and NetGalley for generously providing an ARC for review.

This was a great book! I enjoyed reading this book, I loved the time traveling aspect to it, and the romance parts were cheesy but also not overdone. it was a quick book to read, and it was cute! I liked it!!

Thank you to NetGalley, to the author, and to the publisher for this complementary ARC in exchange for my honest review!!!

This uses the time-traveler element perfectly to tell the story it needed to. The concept worked well in this romantic comedy and was invested in what was going on. The characters had that charm to them and was engaged with their story. Catriona Silvey has a great writing style and am excited to read more.

Oooh a time Jump romcom? Sign me right up! I loved the concept of this and think it was executed so well! I love these characters and they complexities, and their beautiful romance. This was a unique and fun one!

What could be more fun than a good time-travel romcom?

The book begins in 2006. Joe Greene, 20, came from Scotland to study at Cambridge, hoping the experience would “turn me into the poet I’m supposed to be” because of all the great poets who came there in the past, such as Byron. But so far, he has been uninspired to write anything worthwhile.

Then he runs into Esi Campbell.

Esi comes from the future, via a company called Retroflex that runs tourist trips back in time to see famous people when they were young. But Esi’s real motive taking the trip was to find her Mum, who died in a car crash in Cambridge when Esi was eight. Her mother had come back to Cambridge for the 25th anniversary of an award she’d won in 2006 when the fatal accident occurred. Esi is desperate to stop her mom from winning the award so she doesn’t return and doesn’t die.

Joe and Esi were walking together when Esi stumbled, dropping a book Joe immediately retrieved. It was entitled “Meant to Be: Poems for Diana” by Joseph Greene. Above his name was a picture of an older Joe embracing a woman identified as Diana Dartnell, apparently a famous actress and Joe’s great love. The year of publication was 2044, forty years later. Joe knew then Esi was from the future, and he took the book and ran.

What follows has Joe, with Esi’s help, trying to follow the path laid out for him in the book, and Joe helping Esi find her mom. Diana attends Cambridge too, and she is ethereally beautiful. But the connection Joe feels is with Esi, who, it must be said, hasn’t even been born yet.

As everyone involved goes off-script, it raises the inevitable questions that stymy the characters: Can the future change? Is the “butterfly effect” real? Or are there multiple possible futures? And how does time travel fit into the answers?

Evaluation: Thoroughly entertaining!

Tiny spoiler for a paradox, but nothing major. It is a time travel novel, after all, and the title does say paradox.

Ever since I was young, I have always loved ❤️ reading time travel novels. Love and Other Paradoxes is amazing! I remember reading years ago the same paradox (although brought about through different circumstances), and every once in a while, I will think about it. If a time traveler gives you a book of your poems before you write them, did you, in fact, write them?

Anyone who loves time travel romances, or even just cute romances in general, will love this book!

Thanks to NetGalley for the free kindle book. I am leaving this review voluntarily.

I really liked this story but I did have a few issues with all of the passages of time in this book. As well as the unclear scene changes mid chapter.

If you enjoyed the author's previous work "Meet Me in Another Life," and are intrigued by concepts like quantum physics, time travel, parallel universes, endless possibilities, forbidden love stories, destiny, paradoxes, and changing your path against determinism, you'll be drawn into this plot. It follows John Greene, a mediocre, aimless 20-year-old Cambridge student, whose path crosses with a strange young barista named Esi. She has a poetry book written by his future self that foretells his marriage to a beautiful actress named Diana, who becomes his muse, leading to a fulfilled, famous life. Meanwhile, Esi, a poor barista from the future, tries to save her mother's life in the past to rescue her crumbling family.

If you haven't already shouted "I'm sold!" like I did, you might want to find another book. But I bet you're already wondering what's going to happen, right? Come on, jump on this train and join the complex adventure of Joe Greene, who only wants to get a 2.1 to pass his class, while trying to make Diana, who seems way out of his league, fall in love with him to secure his promising future fame and passionate love story.

Esi, whose mother died in an accident that tore her family apart, has time-traveled to Joe's timeline along with other travelers who keep stalking Joe from a distance to witness their famous poet's early years. They've passed through a secret wormhole, and Esi becomes Joe's Cyrano, whispering love tactics to help him win not Roxanne's but Diana's heart. She even gives Joe a makeover: styling his hair, updating his fashion with charity store finds, and offering love advice that seems to work on Diana. But there's a big problem they didn't anticipate: Joe starts liking Esi a lot, realizing he and Diana have little in common.

Esi is adamant about returning to her own time after accomplishing her mission, even though their feelings might be mutual. They believe that whatever they do, they can't change their future - Diana and Joe are meant to be, right? But what if, instead of accepting his predetermined path, Joe listens to his heart and follows a different one against all obstacles?

Overall: I thoroughly enjoyed this complex, unique sci-fi romance novel that blends quantum mechanics and time travel! I'm looking forward to reading more works by the author in the near future.

Many thanks to NetGalley and William Morrow for sharing this smart read's digital reviewer copy with me in exchange for my honest thoughts.