Wow, this was a sheer delight from beginning to end! I have read Jaclyn Moriarty's YA novels and appreciated their humor and the exotic Australian setting, but this took me by surprise with its depth and sheer magical storytelling.
The blurb mentions 3 main characters - Anna, Teddy and Jade - but as I read it, I was mostly fixated on Anna. She was my gateway character and I adore her. She is a mother first and foremost, of a nerdy little wonderful middle schooler and is nervous about her parenting. She shouldn't worry, she is making all the right mistakes.
Teddy is a cutie pie, a good friend, a solid listener and an appealing possible love interest for Anna.
Jade didn't do much for me. I found her kind of an annoying, self-centered person who seems to put herself first in most situations. I read the sections from her point of view with some interest, but also a little bit of disdain. Until her world and Anna's shift closer and their daughters become embroiled in one another's lives - then I liked her even less, until she realizes she is dropping the ball and - Dare I say? - she becomes a wee bit self-aware.
But I haven't even mentioned the time travel!! In this version, any trip a visitor makes to the past through the agency starts a new shoot into the multiverse. Travelers can choose to just be an observer or to have corporeal form. They can interact with people in the past, knowing that it won't change their future. Of course most people think it is a clever immersive kind of special effects matrix at best or a bunch of hooey at worst. It is beautifully rendered and I loved the shout out to Frances Hodgson Burnett.
So Anna works there (with some great secondary characters), Teddy uses the service to try to deconstruct why his marriage fell apart and Jade goes to a creativity workshop upstairs from the offices. To tell you anymore would give too much away. Suffice to say there is humor, grief, regret, renewal and some vicious tween girl drama.
This is in my top 5 of the year so far - and that is saying something!
Thanks to NetGalley for the advanced readers' copy.
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