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A review by themermaddie
See You Yesterday by Rachel Lynn Solomon
5.0
4.5 stars
hello, rachel lynn solomon? it's me, maddie. i love you. you have not once let me down.
look, no one's saying that this concept hasn't been done before, but i enjoyed this immensely. it has all the fun dynamics of palm springs and the collegiate atmosphere of happy death day (without the serial killer) with alllll the angst of being eighteen and insecure. as far as groundhog day premises go, this is truly a delight and it's just straight up great YA.
RLS just seems to keep making these protagonists that i fall in love with, and these two are no exception. barrett and miles are excellent together. they have great chemistry, and i adored seeing their interactions evolve with every (same) day that passes. it's steamy and spicy and angsty and there's a fair amount of yearning involved, and they are just so damn easy to root for. even though they were stuck in a time loop together, i loved that they actively chose to be there for each other every single time, because they wanted to be. RLS's characters are always just so fully fleshed out and human, it's so hard not to empathise and love them.
i loved learning more about their backgrounds, about barrett's love of journalism and miles' love of physics and films, barrett's high school nightmare and miles' complicated relationship with his brother. i was genuinely like, kind of horrified by barrett's whole high school ordeal and prom; i can't believe how well she was holding up tbh, that shit could break any teenager. her confrontation scene with cole was both completely underwhelming and so cathartic, and i'm glad that that particular storyline got the appropriate ending she deserves.
i think my favourite part about any time loop story is when the characters discover new things they hadn't noticed before. i love the movie montage when the days start to blur together and they start losing hope that anything means anything at all when BOOP all of a sudden there's a detail out of place that wasn't here before, and suddenly they're not gods of their universe anymore because look there's something they don't know already! i love those moments, and i liked how many of them we got here without it being a big deal. it was the little things like rediscovering what kind of person lucie actually is (in another life i would write lucie x barrett fanfic bc their tension is just RIPE for it), or finally getting to talk to devereux, or meeting christina the hacker. all the little details that weren't huge moments on their own, but together they reshaped barrett's perception of herself and the world around her, and i just thought it was so lovely.
i do kinda wish that there was a bit more about the loop itself explained. i know we get quite a few quantum physics rants in here but i'm not wholly satisfied with the eventual solution they figured out. it's fine, it's a bit cheesy, and the science isn't really the point, but it would've been nice if the loop was more than just... an anomaly, basically. just something to bring it back thematically would've been nice, like breaking a cycle of trauma or repression or even just old habits would've been a nice touch.
anyway this book set my insides on fire
hello, rachel lynn solomon? it's me, maddie. i love you. you have not once let me down.
look, no one's saying that this concept hasn't been done before, but i enjoyed this immensely. it has all the fun dynamics of palm springs and the collegiate atmosphere of happy death day (without the serial killer) with alllll the angst of being eighteen and insecure. as far as groundhog day premises go, this is truly a delight and it's just straight up great YA.
RLS just seems to keep making these protagonists that i fall in love with, and these two are no exception. barrett and miles are excellent together. they have great chemistry, and i adored seeing their interactions evolve with every (same) day that passes. it's steamy and spicy and angsty and there's a fair amount of yearning involved, and they are just so damn easy to root for. even though they were stuck in a time loop together, i loved that they actively chose to be there for each other every single time, because they wanted to be. RLS's characters are always just so fully fleshed out and human, it's so hard not to empathise and love them.
i loved learning more about their backgrounds, about barrett's love of journalism and miles' love of physics and films, barrett's high school nightmare and miles' complicated relationship with his brother. i was genuinely like, kind of horrified by barrett's whole high school ordeal and prom; i can't believe how well she was holding up tbh, that shit could break any teenager. her confrontation scene with cole was both completely underwhelming and so cathartic, and i'm glad that that particular storyline got the appropriate ending she deserves.
i think my favourite part about any time loop story is when the characters discover new things they hadn't noticed before. i love the movie montage when the days start to blur together and they start losing hope that anything means anything at all when BOOP all of a sudden there's a detail out of place that wasn't here before, and suddenly they're not gods of their universe anymore because look there's something they don't know already! i love those moments, and i liked how many of them we got here without it being a big deal. it was the little things like rediscovering what kind of person lucie actually is (in another life i would write lucie x barrett fanfic bc their tension is just RIPE for it), or finally getting to talk to devereux, or meeting christina the hacker. all the little details that weren't huge moments on their own, but together they reshaped barrett's perception of herself and the world around her, and i just thought it was so lovely.
i do kinda wish that there was a bit more about the loop itself explained. i know we get quite a few quantum physics rants in here but i'm not wholly satisfied with the eventual solution they figured out. it's fine, it's a bit cheesy, and the science isn't really the point, but it would've been nice if the loop was more than just... an anomaly, basically. just something to bring it back thematically would've been nice, like breaking a cycle of trauma or repression or even just old habits would've been a nice touch.
anyway this book set my insides on fire