By: Cait Marie
Blurb
After living through a dumpster fire of a Valentine’s Day, Emilie Hornby escapes to her grandmother’s house for some comfort and a consolation pint of Ben & Jerry’s. She passes out on the couch, but when she wakes up, she’s back home in her own bed—and it’s Valentine’s Day all over again. And the next day? Another nightmare V-Day.
Emilie is stuck in some sort of time loop nightmare that she can’t wake up from as she re-watches her boyfriend, Josh, cheat on her day after day. In addition to Josh’s recurring infidelity, Emilie can’t get away from the enigmatic Nick, who she keeps running into—sometimes literally—in unfortunate ways.
How many days can one girl passively watch her life go up in flames? And when something good starts to come out of these terrible days, what happens when the universe stops doling out do-overs?
Review
This book has been on my TBR for a while now, and needing a break from fantasy, I jumped in. It was absolutely wonderful. It’s the classic time loop trope, where the main character is reliving the same day over and over, but it was so well done that it felt like a fresh take while still being familiar.
Emilie experiences a wreck of a Valentine’s Day, only to wake up and have to do it all over again. No matter how hard she tries to make it better, it’s a disaster. The one slightly positive constant is her interactions with Nick each day. The two have shared a table in chemistry all year, but they’d never really spoken until this phenomenon.
Most days result in them becoming friends in one way or another. And from the beginning, I adored them together. It’s a case of truly bringing out the best in each other. Seeing both slowly open up was great, and I love that even on the days where Nick doesn’t really get to know Emilie, he’s still supportive of her. There’s one chapter where she’s clearly upset, and she doesn’t speak much as he drives her to school, but before parting ways he tells her to “f*** them” without knowing what’s wrong. I just loved it so much, seeing how he cared even when he barely knew her.
The pacing of the story was perfect, and the whole thing was engaging. Time loop books tend to drag a little in the middle because it’s repetitive, but this one didn’t feel that way. Emilie really tried changing things up, and in doing so, her character developed a lot.
I really enjoyed this book and definitely recommend it to YA romance readers. It’s fun and cute, but there are emotional subplots too. Both characters are dealing with difficult situations in their home lives, and as Emilie continues growing close with Nick and learning his story, it’s kind of put into perspective that there are bigger things going on than high school drama and that she’s not alone in her feelings.
I can’t wait to read more by Painter!
Functionally Fictional 