Title: When You Reach Me by Rebecca Stead
Scored a: A
Status: Finished
One of my hobbies is composing themed lists of movies/books, etc, to suggest to people or just find themes in entertainment. Others do work, but this does what it needs to to keep me entertained.
I’d put When You Reach Me on a list of excellent time travel fiction. I don’t have a very big list of that so far, mind you. Just The Time Machine and A Tale of Time City so far. But I’m sure it’ll grow. The problem is time travel isn’t usually a plot point that makes me go ‘well, hey there little book. Let’s get some reading done.’ Which doesn’t mean I dislike it, I’m just way more likely to go ‘Oh my god! Griffin in wizard school!’
But as I said, When You Reach Me is excellent. The plot is that Miranda Sinclair has three things going on in her life: Her mother is preparing to go on a gameshow, her best friend refuses to speak to her and she doesn’t know why, and she’s getting letters from the future.
Everything ties together just right. The ending is satisfying in a good way, and you get to really see Miranda discover the world around her as she’s forced to leave her comfort zone in the book. It also features a SO for her mom that is not dickish, which is nice to see in fiction because that’s so dang rare.
I’m a little biased on account of getting on pretty good with my stepmom, I admit.
It’s a good book if you like time travel, or if you like books that explore what friendship is.