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A review by kierscrivener
Oona Out of Order by Margarita Montimore
5.0
"Whichever the years flow it was impossible to outmaneuver their passage."
This is a novel that beautifully explores the complex emotions and nuances of time, aging and love in regards to family. The feeling that one is always not in the place in life that they would like. If only they were younger, if only they were older.
I am falling in love with novels like this that employ fantastical or speculative ideas to examine characters. Time travel is central to the plot. But I would not categorize this as science fiction as Montimore only uses the time travel as a way to explore the character of Oona and the themes of time and place and the uncertainty of life.
"Oona was still learning, everytime she leaped no matter the year someone important would be absent from life."
This is a poignant truth in all our lives, rarely are any of us surrounded by the complete ensemble of our loved ones. This has always been one of my keen fascinations. As someone who has loved ones scattered across time and distance, meaning that my heart always yearns for those who are not near. Oona Out Of Order explores this very tangibly, as each year she leaps back or forth in her chronology. She is acutely aware of the limited time with every person and the impossibility that they will each exist at one place in time. In some years she will grieve those who have died and in others those who have not been born.
"Whichever the years flow it was impossible to outmaneuver their passage. Even chronology doesn't guarantee security. All good things end. Always. The trick was to enjoy them when they lasted."
Life is transient. Oona is better able to grasp this as she weaves back and forth in her timeline, but it is a truth I try to see in my own life while not being ruled by it. The acceptance that some people important are no longer a part of my life, when others have not yet joined and some will intersect between. But accepting the finity of moments and time. The rare joy of the present. Allowing each season, each year, each day be honoured. As it is unique. Whether good or bad. We only live in the present. Time is fleeting. We idealize the past and the future but Oona Out Of Order argues that contentment is accepting that time is outside of our dominion. That does not however keep us from enjoying the moment we are in.
"That's the amazing thing about you. How sneaky your wisdom and how quiet your sacrifices."
One of my favourite aspects was the relationship between Oona and her mother, it was untraditional from the beginning. Madeleine having had her at seventeen, it fits into the genre of the mother being more frivolous and liberal than the daughter. But it does not fall into a lot of the cliches of this trope, especially as Oona’s first jump puts her at fifty-one. Meaning she experienced life as a woman fifteen years older than her mom was in her lived experience. It also allows her to see her mom as a senior and to reckon on a path much more equal. We follow Oona ‘chronologically’ rather than biologically. Meaning we flip through the years as she grows mentally older as this is the entirety of Oona’s adult life. Meaning that her mother has experienced Oona in many different inside years in the years Oona hasn’t experienced yet. As Madeleine says several times throughout, she has met Oona when she was middle aged or ‘wizened’ when in a physically younger body.
It is an interesting concept, because her mother is the sole person who is always aware that Oona leaps. (Though, I was saddened we never get to experience her finding out). We only see Oona’s timeline, which skips completely from the 80s so the earliest we experience Madeleine is after a decade of adjusting to Oona. And by these years being absent we know they must be filled by older Oonas. Which is an interesting phenomenon. Though Oona is unhappy with jumping to middle age for her first leap it allows her to have the stability of her mother’s thirty years of experience and acceptance of her leaps and development. Giving us hints of what to come. Even though we do not see the reversal, it is true that in the first years Madeleine had the benefit of meeting a more wise and stable Oona. It is a beautiful example of friendship, and even the changing nature of parent child relationships.
It is an ode to the complexities adult child parent relationships that are often glossed over in discussion. This is the summer before I turn twenty-three, it marks the fifth anniversary of when I moved out just shy of my eighteenth birthday. I live a five hour drive from my parents which makes a nuanced relationship with my parents as an adult. I haven’t been a regular feature in their lives since I was a teenager, we only see each other in spurts and those are a magnified experience as it is outside of our normals. It is a week or two of constantly seeing each other which intensifies the incongruency. Though a part of my life, they aren’t familiar with the version of who I am now. I have seen this in each and every one of my peers who have moved home or stayed with their parents over summers after living apart. There is an incongruency and uncertainty in power and balance as both parties are adults now but there is still a child parent dynamic. And there is a gap of knowledge and intimacy, as they have evolved separately as people. I have seen this in friends as well who have left only to return a few years later to a rearranged dynamic of friends and context and struggled to make peace with the reality of change. This especially in Madeleine and Oona’s relationship is just the hyperbolized version of this constant change in relationships. In each year for Madeline and each leap for Oona, they have to adjust to the version of each other that is present. They have to make allowances, they have to do maintenance and employ forgiveness. And though it is not without its complexities and struggles it is one of the most nuanced, realistic and emotionally healthy mother-daughter relationships I’ve seen.
“Oona stopped trusting the mirror years ago. After all it told only a sliver of the story. The mirror exposed time’s passage, yes, but eclipsed her heart’s true mileage. Each year the body was hers but her mind was out of sync with her reflection.”
I went to read the free preview of the ebook to discover the spelling of Madeleine’s name. As I listened to the audiobook and there are a ridiculous amount of versions of how to spell Madeleine. And I was struck by the opening, it sparked in me that I was immediately enthralled. (This is why you make notes, as I always think I’ll remember exact feelings but I often have to revisit to remember how I felt then) I had been excited since I heard of the book but then in the first minute of listening it transformed from an expectation to a reality. Instantly, I knew this was a book I would love. I felt a kinship with it. That would only grow as I listened on.
Oona Out of Order mirrored my love for Rebecca and other books that reveal the end in the beginning but you can’t decipher it yet. I am currently listening to Turn of The Screw and it has the same device where the narrator recalls looking back. It is a particular storytelling technique that I am intimately drawn to. How the passage of time and aging affects us is one of my favourite themes. I don’t quite know why I am drawn to it so intensely. I do spend a lot of time reflecting on time in my own life and how who we are becomes a stranger to ourselves.
Even when this is not ‘serious’ exploration it draws me, like in the case of How I Met Your Mother. It is a sitcom, the future aspect is used for humour more than nuance. And yet, I can look past (though not excuse) all the faults and toxicities for the fact that it examines time and how time affects us. Though it didn’t land the finale, the moments in which we look forward to when each member had their last cigarette or the doppelganger plot where the line will always remain with me. “Eventually over time, we all become our own doppelgangers. These completely different people who just happen to look like us.” This is an aside, but this quote is why the finale does not line up. It is a nine year arc but because of children being cast they filmed the ending eight years before it would air. And did not take into affect their own growth as writers, the growth of the characters, the change in the actors and how they played them and how the fandom had developed. The show had become a doppelganger of itself and yet it tried reverting to the ending planned in the beginning. Not acknowledging its own evolution was its downfall.
This is why time and character will always intrigue me. Because we all live this out. Oona lives this out in each year, in each leap. It is beautiful. It is touching. And why it spoke so deeply to me and my own insecurities around the lack of stability of time and aging. How I cannot stay the person I was, I cannot capture the moments of that season though I live my life out chronologically. As like that famous T. S. Eliot quote ‘this is the way the world ends not with a bang but a whimper’ our seasons and years do not end with a bang but with a whimper. We do not realize the jolt of incongruency until it is upon us.
“At first the lost years were agony, the instant loss unbearable. And when the stolen time was returned to her, it was rearranged. Always something taken from her. Someone else taken.”
This is the flashforward the novel begins with and it has a beautiful hook and does a great job setting up promises for plot. This is set later in the novel but articulates many of her early struggles and the journey is of her acceptance. As Oona’s situation doesn’t change. Her physical year and body changes but the upheaval of being jolted back and forth in her timeline and age remains the same. This is not a person vs world (in this case time) story like it might have been if framed differently. It is a person vs person. Oona vs Oona. Though time travel is the central mover it is not the plot. The story is Oona accepting time and unpredictability. The progression from unsatisfied, always yearning for a different time. A different body. To Oona accepting the transience of her life. To Oona accepting Oona. Not for the world accepting Oona or the world changing for Oona. Though part of her development is learning to stand up for herself. This to some will be unsatisfactory, one reviewer said it lacked oomph or execution. That it was merely a thought experiment. But I would claim that was Margarita Montimore’s intention. She set out to tell characters and themes and not plot. To me that is for the better. But I only like plot when it doesn’t hinder character or themes. So very biased.
I rarely give out five stars wanting to reserve them for books that speak to me in a way that I cannot completely describe. It is much easier for me to verbalize how I feel about a two star read than a five star read. I think I might settle on calling them ‘books that I feel in my neck.’ It is odd. But I like it. Whenever I read something that speaks deeply to me I feel it in my neck. The tightness. The bloom of fullness in my chest. It is indescribable. It is intimate. And there are no words that capture the feeling. This is a neck book. I cried and I laughed and throughout it all I felt kin to it.
Additional Quotes:
"Oona was still learning, everytime she leaped no matter the year someone important would be absent from life. Every year bittersweet. But it would be okay. There would be bad days, there always would. But she'd collect these good days, each one illuminated, and string them together until they glowed brightly in her memory"
"Her next leap would always hover over the horizon waiting to wisp her away. In some cases waiting to grant a wish from years ago."
This is a novel that beautifully explores the complex emotions and nuances of time, aging and love in regards to family. The feeling that one is always not in the place in life that they would like. If only they were younger, if only they were older.
I am falling in love with novels like this that employ fantastical or speculative ideas to examine characters. Time travel is central to the plot. But I would not categorize this as science fiction as Montimore only uses the time travel as a way to explore the character of Oona and the themes of time and place and the uncertainty of life.
"Oona was still learning, everytime she leaped no matter the year someone important would be absent from life."
This is a poignant truth in all our lives, rarely are any of us surrounded by the complete ensemble of our loved ones. This has always been one of my keen fascinations. As someone who has loved ones scattered across time and distance, meaning that my heart always yearns for those who are not near. Oona Out Of Order explores this very tangibly, as each year she leaps back or forth in her chronology. She is acutely aware of the limited time with every person and the impossibility that they will each exist at one place in time. In some years she will grieve those who have died and in others those who have not been born.
"Whichever the years flow it was impossible to outmaneuver their passage. Even chronology doesn't guarantee security. All good things end. Always. The trick was to enjoy them when they lasted."
Life is transient. Oona is better able to grasp this as she weaves back and forth in her timeline, but it is a truth I try to see in my own life while not being ruled by it. The acceptance that some people important are no longer a part of my life, when others have not yet joined and some will intersect between. But accepting the finity of moments and time. The rare joy of the present. Allowing each season, each year, each day be honoured. As it is unique. Whether good or bad. We only live in the present. Time is fleeting. We idealize the past and the future but Oona Out Of Order argues that contentment is accepting that time is outside of our dominion. That does not however keep us from enjoying the moment we are in.
"That's the amazing thing about you. How sneaky your wisdom and how quiet your sacrifices."
One of my favourite aspects was the relationship between Oona and her mother, it was untraditional from the beginning. Madeleine having had her at seventeen, it fits into the genre of the mother being more frivolous and liberal than the daughter. But it does not fall into a lot of the cliches of this trope, especially as Oona’s first jump puts her at fifty-one. Meaning she experienced life as a woman fifteen years older than her mom was in her lived experience. It also allows her to see her mom as a senior and to reckon on a path much more equal. We follow Oona ‘chronologically’ rather than biologically. Meaning we flip through the years as she grows mentally older as this is the entirety of Oona’s adult life. Meaning that her mother has experienced Oona in many different inside years in the years Oona hasn’t experienced yet. As Madeleine says several times throughout, she has met Oona when she was middle aged or ‘wizened’ when in a physically younger body.
It is an interesting concept, because her mother is the sole person who is always aware that Oona leaps. (Though, I was saddened we never get to experience her finding out). We only see Oona’s timeline, which skips completely from the 80s so the earliest we experience Madeleine is after a decade of adjusting to Oona. And by these years being absent we know they must be filled by older Oonas. Which is an interesting phenomenon. Though Oona is unhappy with jumping to middle age for her first leap it allows her to have the stability of her mother’s thirty years of experience and acceptance of her leaps and development. Giving us hints of what to come. Even though we do not see the reversal, it is true that in the first years Madeleine had the benefit of meeting a more wise and stable Oona. It is a beautiful example of friendship, and even the changing nature of parent child relationships.
It is an ode to the complexities adult child parent relationships that are often glossed over in discussion. This is the summer before I turn twenty-three, it marks the fifth anniversary of when I moved out just shy of my eighteenth birthday. I live a five hour drive from my parents which makes a nuanced relationship with my parents as an adult. I haven’t been a regular feature in their lives since I was a teenager, we only see each other in spurts and those are a magnified experience as it is outside of our normals. It is a week or two of constantly seeing each other which intensifies the incongruency. Though a part of my life, they aren’t familiar with the version of who I am now. I have seen this in each and every one of my peers who have moved home or stayed with their parents over summers after living apart. There is an incongruency and uncertainty in power and balance as both parties are adults now but there is still a child parent dynamic. And there is a gap of knowledge and intimacy, as they have evolved separately as people. I have seen this in friends as well who have left only to return a few years later to a rearranged dynamic of friends and context and struggled to make peace with the reality of change. This especially in Madeleine and Oona’s relationship is just the hyperbolized version of this constant change in relationships. In each year for Madeline and each leap for Oona, they have to adjust to the version of each other that is present. They have to make allowances, they have to do maintenance and employ forgiveness. And though it is not without its complexities and struggles it is one of the most nuanced, realistic and emotionally healthy mother-daughter relationships I’ve seen.
“Oona stopped trusting the mirror years ago. After all it told only a sliver of the story. The mirror exposed time’s passage, yes, but eclipsed her heart’s true mileage. Each year the body was hers but her mind was out of sync with her reflection.”
I went to read the free preview of the ebook to discover the spelling of Madeleine’s name. As I listened to the audiobook and there are a ridiculous amount of versions of how to spell Madeleine. And I was struck by the opening, it sparked in me that I was immediately enthralled. (This is why you make notes, as I always think I’ll remember exact feelings but I often have to revisit to remember how I felt then) I had been excited since I heard of the book but then in the first minute of listening it transformed from an expectation to a reality. Instantly, I knew this was a book I would love. I felt a kinship with it. That would only grow as I listened on.
Oona Out of Order mirrored my love for Rebecca and other books that reveal the end in the beginning but you can’t decipher it yet. I am currently listening to Turn of The Screw and it has the same device where the narrator recalls looking back. It is a particular storytelling technique that I am intimately drawn to. How the passage of time and aging affects us is one of my favourite themes. I don’t quite know why I am drawn to it so intensely. I do spend a lot of time reflecting on time in my own life and how who we are becomes a stranger to ourselves.
Even when this is not ‘serious’ exploration it draws me, like in the case of How I Met Your Mother. It is a sitcom, the future aspect is used for humour more than nuance. And yet, I can look past (though not excuse) all the faults and toxicities for the fact that it examines time and how time affects us. Though it didn’t land the finale, the moments in which we look forward to when each member had their last cigarette or the doppelganger plot where the line will always remain with me. “Eventually over time, we all become our own doppelgangers. These completely different people who just happen to look like us.” This is an aside, but this quote is why the finale does not line up. It is a nine year arc but because of children being cast they filmed the ending eight years before it would air. And did not take into affect their own growth as writers, the growth of the characters, the change in the actors and how they played them and how the fandom had developed. The show had become a doppelganger of itself and yet it tried reverting to the ending planned in the beginning. Not acknowledging its own evolution was its downfall.
This is why time and character will always intrigue me. Because we all live this out. Oona lives this out in each year, in each leap. It is beautiful. It is touching. And why it spoke so deeply to me and my own insecurities around the lack of stability of time and aging. How I cannot stay the person I was, I cannot capture the moments of that season though I live my life out chronologically. As like that famous T. S. Eliot quote ‘this is the way the world ends not with a bang but a whimper’ our seasons and years do not end with a bang but with a whimper. We do not realize the jolt of incongruency until it is upon us.
“At first the lost years were agony, the instant loss unbearable. And when the stolen time was returned to her, it was rearranged. Always something taken from her. Someone else taken.”
This is the flashforward the novel begins with and it has a beautiful hook and does a great job setting up promises for plot. This is set later in the novel but articulates many of her early struggles and the journey is of her acceptance. As Oona’s situation doesn’t change. Her physical year and body changes but the upheaval of being jolted back and forth in her timeline and age remains the same. This is not a person vs world (in this case time) story like it might have been if framed differently. It is a person vs person. Oona vs Oona. Though time travel is the central mover it is not the plot. The story is Oona accepting time and unpredictability. The progression from unsatisfied, always yearning for a different time. A different body. To Oona accepting the transience of her life. To Oona accepting Oona. Not for the world accepting Oona or the world changing for Oona. Though part of her development is learning to stand up for herself. This to some will be unsatisfactory, one reviewer said it lacked oomph or execution. That it was merely a thought experiment. But I would claim that was Margarita Montimore’s intention. She set out to tell characters and themes and not plot. To me that is for the better. But I only like plot when it doesn’t hinder character or themes. So very biased.
I rarely give out five stars wanting to reserve them for books that speak to me in a way that I cannot completely describe. It is much easier for me to verbalize how I feel about a two star read than a five star read. I think I might settle on calling them ‘books that I feel in my neck.’ It is odd. But I like it. Whenever I read something that speaks deeply to me I feel it in my neck. The tightness. The bloom of fullness in my chest. It is indescribable. It is intimate. And there are no words that capture the feeling. This is a neck book. I cried and I laughed and throughout it all I felt kin to it.
Additional Quotes:
"Oona was still learning, everytime she leaped no matter the year someone important would be absent from life. Every year bittersweet. But it would be okay. There would be bad days, there always would. But she'd collect these good days, each one illuminated, and string them together until they glowed brightly in her memory"
"Her next leap would always hover over the horizon waiting to wisp her away. In some cases waiting to grant a wish from years ago."