“Because if things can be broken, then things can be changed; and if things can be changed, then it stands to good and logical reason that they can also be fixed. That’s all I need to know.”
Holly Smale’s Cassandra in Reverse (Mira 2023) was my June Aardvark selection. It’s a cheeky novel that reminded me of Bridget Jones’s Diary, just make Bridget neurodivergent and add time travel. The character of Cassandra and how she is developed and presented also recalled Elizabeth from Lessons in Chemistry, a relatively recent read with a female lead also on the spectrum; however, Cassandra’s “differences” are more at the forefront of this novel.
The opening is one of my favorites and immediately hooked me: “Where does a story start? It’s a lie, the first page of a book, because it masquerades as a beginning…And it’s saying that kind of shit that gets me thrown out of the Fentiman Road Book Club.” Cassandra decides to start her story after she’s been dumped and fired and just before discovering she can time travel. What follows are her numerous attempts at going back in time, just a few months is all she can do, to keep her man and job (but mostly her boyfriend). There’s a lot of warmth in watching her develop honest and real friendships with her roommate and coworkers. It’s charming and witty, but your heart hurts just a bit for Cassandra because the reader realizes before she does that she’s trying to erase herself.
As Cassandra is time traveling, the reader sees her avoiding a woman. Letters are arriving that she just trashes, she flees a woman in a museum, etc. The twist with this woman isn’t really a shocker or the heart of the novel, but I don’t want to spoil it because it does provide more adhesive to a plot that could be a touch hollow.
The novel was billed as a romance, which seems a bit misplaced. Arguably, it is a love story – just not the type of love story anticipated with a romance tag. I enjoyed it, but I did get frustrated with Cassandra and the seemingly steady loop. And I hated the ending. I felt cheated after investing so much time in Cassandra and learning to love her as she learned to love herself. As much as the opening was a favorite, the ending left me with bad taste for the entire novel.
I’d still recommend it though.
Read this book.
A Girl Named Tommi 