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Manipulation of time has often been a plot device used in stories. Usually this just involves someone traveling to the past or the future and having adventures there. In the following novels, time plays a much more interesting and unpredictable role in the story.
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Oona Out of Order by Margarita Montimore
New Year’s Eve, the night before her 19th birthday, Oona’s at a party with her boyfriend and friends, with her whole life ahead of her. As the clock strikes 12 to ring in 1983, she finds herself in a completely different place and comes to find out that she is now 51 instead of 19 and the year is 2015. With information she has left for herself and the help of an assistant she has never met before, she discovers that she is just at the start of a long journey. When each year ends at the stroke of midnight, she finds herself in a different year of her life...all completely out of order. How can she maintain relationships, hold a job, live a full life, in these circumstances? Will she ever make it back to 1983 and be able to live her life in order again?
The 7 1/2 Deaths of Evelyn Hardcastle by Stuart Turton
A time loop story, but with a twist. Evelyn Hardcastle is murdered during a gathering at her parent’s estate. Every day Aiden Bishop wakes up the morning before her murder, with the mission to solve the crime. The catch? Every day he wakes in the body of a different guest and must use this new perspective to piece together different clues to the mystery, though some hosts are more helpful than others. Aiden has eight days and eight hosts to discover the truth before he’ll be allowed to leave. Who killed Evelyn Hardcastle and why?
11/22/63 by Stephen King
Jake Epping is an English teacher in Maine in 2011. His friend Al is dying and decides to pass on his secret to Jake while he can—there is a portal to the past in the pantry of his diner. They can step through to a September day in 1958, spend time in the past, and when they come back through to the future, any changes they make will stay. However, if they go back to 1958 again, it is to the same day and any changes that were made previously are erased and they must start with a clean slate. Jake inherits the mission that Al has been working on but never succeeded at—prevent the assassination of JFK. Jake must survive in the past long enough and find enough information to prevent history. Any mistake he makes along the way means he will need to start all over again. Will he make it to that fateful day in 1963 to accomplish his mission? Should he? Will time itself even let him or will it fight back?
Life After Life by Kate Atkinson
What if someone was in a time loop, and didn’t even know it? The first time Ursula Todd was born in 1910 she died before her first breath. The second time she managed to survive with her death only coming later. The third time... Ursula dies many times, in many different ways, and at many different ages. Sometimes she dies as a child, sometimes she makes it to adulthood, sometimes she dies of illness, or accident, or murder. But each time she dies, her life starts over again. Ursula doesn’t actively remember her past lives, but some impressions still bleed through, setting her on many different paths. The world is also descending into a second world war as she grows up and Ursula has her own part to play in the events.
About the Author
Amanda W. is a Library Associate at Tenley-Friendship Neighborhood Library. She likes to read across many genres but most often literary fiction, usually with a little fantastical element (like time travel!). She's currently reading The Only Good Indians, which as a horror is a little outside her usual wheelhouse.