Reviewed Time And Time Again

Time and Time Again by Chatham Greenfield

#Queer #YA #RomCom #TimeTravel

CW: Click Here

5/5

One day, not too long ago, one of my best friends sent me a book suggestion. They hadn't read it yet, but knew that I needed to. In fact, they pitched it to me by saying they wouldn't be surprised if I had written it. Time and Time Again by Chatham Greenfield (not me!) is a queer Jewish time loop novel starring two differently disabled teens, one with green hair and one fat. And this is just what I knew about before reading the book! I am a sucker for time loop stories and do plan to write one. I also clearly love when people like me are represented in fiction. Even better when it's a love story!

Time and Time Again picks up over 20 loops into Phoebe Mendel's time looping. She's been living the same boring and mildly disappointing day. Wake up at her mom's place for Dusty Springfield and blueberry pancakes, get passed by ex-friend Jess on the way to her dad's house, play scrabble, get an I.B.S. flare up from chicken parmesan. This changes when Jess hits Phoebe with their car when Phoebe wasn't paying attention. Jess is now stuck with Phoebe in the loops. While Phoebe's approach was to keep doing the same things while researching time loops in her free time, Jess was ready to cause some chaos. Why not take advantage of the impermanence they've both been gifted? Maybe they'll find something a bit more permanent between them along the way.

Greenfield got the idea for a time loop during Covid's early days, when everyone was meant to be in lockdown. For many, the days felt quite repetitive, but for Greenfield, that was unfortunately normal. Being chronically ill can make one's days feel looped. Despite all of Phoebe's research, when Jess gets pulled into the time loop, she is nowhere close to figuring out how to end it. With the exception of a few of the non-days (what the pair call the looping days), the teens treat every loop like it might be the last. They still get up to things like major hair cuts, spending tons of money, and pushing the limits of their chronic illnesses. Phoebe has anxiety, so she's always considering if she might be stuck with a choice she made in a loop. Greenfield did a great job of writing a time loop book. They incorporated some of my favorite things like the love interest having some mysterious thing they run off to in the afternoon, a song to wake up to each day, and not having to be alone in the loop. Greenfield also did things that surprised me in a good way, but I won't be spoiling those. I think they're a great writer and I'll absolutely be reading their future books.

The Jewish representation was one of the things that sold me on Time and Time Again. It was great at the start, but I feel it lost its prevalence by the end of the book. Phoebe has a Jewish dad and a Christian mom. She also has an uncle who regularly goes to shul and tries to make his husband go too. It makes me wonder why the dad was ever serving chicken parm. Based on the cover art, illustrated by Ericka Lugo, Jess has a Jewish nose and I'm living for it. There's also a bit of Jewish geography when Jess and Phoebe's uncle realize they go to shul together. The only reason the leads were childhood friends is because their dads were both Jewish and connected over that. There's talk of generational trauma and how it manifests in the body. There are other Jewish things sprinkled in, and they feel Jewish the whole time. Although I wish it would have been handled with a bit heavier of a hand, I loved it.

As for the queer rep? 1000% on point! Phoebe is a lesbian who has also had crushes on non-binary people. Her dad was able to tell even when she was a little girl. Jess is a non-binary lesbian who mentions being aware of the complexity at some point in the book. Phoebe has gay uncles, one that wears an atrocious button down each loop. Jess's brother is in a band full of queer folks, including himself. There are other members of the community in the story too. Time and Time Again was set in Florida to explore how it sucks to be from a small town there and the politics hurt, but it can be such a beautiful place too. And I know that colorful hair isn't exclusively queer, but with Jess having hair like mine, it feels like queer rep. I have read a lot of queer books, but there are not a lot of romcoms for trans characters, especially such sweet ones. This is why I am drawn to romcoms with minorities, we deserve to escape into a happy story when the world won't provide.

It's honestly wild how much of myself somehow ended up in Time and Time Again for a book I didn't write. Phoebe is sapphic, fat, starts leaning into fashion, loves Descendants, is Jewish, has divorced parents, suffers from IBS, and likes Garfield. Jess has dyed green hair, suffers from a chronic illness that affects their ability to walk, uses a cane, likes eccentric fashion, listens to pop punk, and has a queer older sibling. They're both Jewish! As for the author, I found out that their birthday is the day after mine and they're only a year younger than me. Are they just me from another universe who has come here for some reason? 

Liking time loop stories is enough of a reason to read Chatham Greenfield's Time and Time Again. If you need more than that, I hope I've convinced you above. It's filled with Jewish, queer, disabled, and fat rep. There's a high chance you'll feel seen reading this book, even if it's due to one of the other aspects the novel has. You should read it soon, but don't worry, there will always be another chance! 

Bonus: If you want some more Jewish time loop stories, check out Rachel Lynn Solomon's See You Yesterday and Hallmark's 2023 Hannukka movie Round and Round (starring non-binary comedian Vic Michaelis)