Oona Out of Order
by Margarita Montimore
5 stars
As a cataloger at GPL I don’t have a lot of patron interaction, but I do have a lot of one-on-one time with the books. In fact, the best part of my job is opening all of the boxes that come into the library and seeing every new title that will be added to the collection. I get to see the books again, at least everything in the teen and adult collection, when I enter all of the information into the computer to make finding what you are looking for easier. Many books come across my desk but only a few catch my interest. Here I must confess that I judge books based on covers and titles all the time. One of the books that recently caught my attention was Oona Out of Order by Margarita Montimore. This one had a fun cover plus the title had me asking “Why and how is this lady out of order?’
Have you ever thought “What if I could fast forward to a few years from now?” Or conversely, have you ever wanted to go back to a time when you were younger to relive past mistakes or choose to live a more daring life? For some reason this is what life is like for Oona Lockhart. At the New Yea’rs Eve party celebrating the end of 1982, and the last day Oona is 18, she passes out at midnight and ends up ringing in a new year, just not the one she thought she would. Oona is now celebrating her 19th birthday in 2015 in a 51 year old body. No longer is she at a party in a basement adorned with fairy lights and loud music but rather in a quiet, posh Brooklyn residence that the stranger sitting next to her explains belongs to her. The stranger is her personal assistant, Kenzie. He has known her for years, though she is meeting him for the first time. Kenzie hands Oona a letter that her future past self (this gets less confusing the further you are immersed within the books) wrote her explaining her unique condition and hands her a binder of key stock market tips that Oona gave to herself that make it possible for her never to have to worry about money again. Her mother, Madeleine, knows that since the age of 19, Oona has been an unwilling time traveler. Madeleine helps Oona learn to navigate her new life because as the ball drops in Times Square at the end of the year it will all happen again.
Montimore wrote such an inventive and unique book that plays so deliciously with the time continuum that once I started it did not take long to be immersed fully into Oona’s life and her crazy order of living it. I loved every second of the book after I stopped trying to wrap my head around the logistics of the time travel. The book makes you look at family and relationships, even temporary ones, as something not to be taken for granted. Montimore also explores the idea of time and relishing moments that most would consider insignificant. She also helps the reader see that happiness and heartache are two sides of the same coin. It has been a while since I read a five star book, and while I know tastes vary drastically, Oona Out of Order was the book that propelled me out of my reading slump.
Read-alikes
The Dinner List by Rebecca Serle
Life After Life by Kate Atkinson
What Alice Forgot by Liane Moriarty
