Every once in a while, I run into a book that is totally different from anything I’ve ever read. When Oona Out of Order was recommended to me, I started listening to the audiobook and didn’t stop for three days. Wow, what a story. Just imagine if the years of your life were out of order. Say you just turned eighteen but wake up to find you are sixty-five with an eighteen-year-old’s brain, maturation level, and lack of judgement. That is the premise of Oona Out of Order.
Realistically, don’t we all feel a little younger than what the mirror shows us? I’m still that thirty-five-year-old inside, even though the rest of me is not cooperating.
If you glanced at the cover, look at it again. Check out the different shades of Oona’s hair, including the grey! This time-travel novel came out in 2020.
Book Description:
NATIONAL BESTSELLER
A GOOD MORNING AMERICA BOOK CLUB PICK
AMAZON EDITORS’ 20 BEST BOOKS OF THE YEAR PICK
“With its countless epiphanies and surprises, Oona proves difficult to put down.” —USA Today
“By turns tragic and triumphant, heartbreakingly poignant and joyful, this is ultimately an uplifting and redemptive read.” —The Guardian
A remarkably inventive novel that explores what it means to live a life fully in the moment, even if those moments are out of order.
It’s New Year’s Eve 1982, and Oona Lockhart has her whole life before her. At the stroke of midnight she will turn nineteen, and the year ahead promises to be one of consequence. Should she go to London to study economics, or remain at home in Brooklyn to pursue her passion for music and be with her boyfriend? As the countdown to the New Year begins, Oona faints and awakens thirty-two years in the future in her fifty-one-year-old body. Greeted by a friendly stranger in a beautiful house she’s told is her own, Oona learns that with each passing year she will leap to another age at random. And so begins Oona Out of Order…
Hopping through decades, pop culture fads, and much-needed stock tips, Oona is still a young woman on the inside but ever changing on the outside. Who will she be next year? Philanthropist? Club Kid? World traveler? Wife to a man she’s never met? Surprising, magical, and heart-wrenching, Margarita Montimore has crafted an unforgettable story about the burdens of time, the endurance of love, and the power of family.
My Review 5 Stars
I absolutely loved the idea of this story where Oona finds herself in a new year of her life on every New Year’s Day. She could be forty or twenty-one. Because she jumps around so much she tries to leave herself letters but it doesn’t always work out. She finds joy and hardship and learns to appreciate every moment of living even though it’s out of order. This is a terrific time-travel book full of surprises that will keep you reading late into the night.
