Book Club January 2024- Oona Out of Order

By: Margarita Montimore
Published Year: 2020
Publisher: Flatiron Books
Pages: 339

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Summary (Provided by Goodreads): It’s New Year’s Eve 1982, and Oona Lockhart has her whole life before her. At the stroke of midnight she will turn nineteen, and the year ahead promises to be one of consequence. Should she go to London to study economics, or remain at home in Brooklyn to pursue her passion for music and be with her boyfriend? As the countdown to the New Year begins, Oona faints and awakens thirty-two years in the future in her fifty-one-year-old body. Greeted by a friendly stranger in a beautiful house she’s told is her own, Oona learns that with each passing year she will leap to another age at random. And so begins Oona Out of Order...

Hopping through decades, pop culture fads, and much-needed stock tips, Oona is still a young woman on the inside but ever changing on the outside. Who will she be next year? Philanthropist? Club Kid? World traveler? Wife to a man she’s never met? Surprising, magical, and heart-wrenching, Margarita Montimore has crafted an unforgettable story about the burdens of time, the endurance of love, and the power of family.

What I thought

This was my pick this month. The last two books that we’ve read for book club have been downers and I haven’t enjoyed them much. I wanted to pick something that was a bit lighter and that I knew had some good reviews. My friend Carly had recommended this to me after she read it and I picked it up at a library book sale. I was really excited to get into it!

Oona’s birthday is New Years Day. When she turns 19, she jumps forward to 2015, where she is all of a sudden a 19 year old living in a 51 year old’s body. From that point forward, Oona does not live her life in order. Every year on New Year’s Day, she wakes up in a different year and never knows where or when. Inside, she is moving forward chronologically in age, but on the outside she is left to the whim of the leaps.

I have to say, this cover does not do this book justice. I have seen this book on a bunch of lists for years and it gave me more the vibe of Eleanor Olephant is Completely Fine, which, I enjoyed, but didn’t feel like I wanted another one. In actuality, this book is much more. It’s more like sci-fi/magical realism with the time travel and such. I’m kind of a sucker for time travel stories, though I will admit this one could end up leaving you frustrated.

I was immediately sucked in and loved learning where Oona was going to go next. It had a bit of a mystery element and I wanted to see what she experienced. My biggest gripe is a combo of this book is too short/I want to see more of Oona’s years, and the ending. I knew this book was going to be a hard one to have a satisfying ending for, but it still fell a little flat. We were told about all of these life events and then didn’t get to see them come to fruition. I feel like I need a sequel.

What really worked for me with this book was the concept of being young in an older person’s body and how perspective can change as you experience different parts of life. It becomes more obvious in Oona’s life as she jumps from year to year, but I think it’s a necessary lesson we all learn.

I’m so glad I was convinced to give this book a chance because I really enjoyed it. I am curious to see what else Montimore has written because I really liked the writing style. I highly recommend checking this one out. It got a lot of buzz when it came out and I feel like it lives up to the hype.

What Book Club Thought

Everybody loved it! We had a lot of good discussion about the questions we would’ve had, what we would’ve wanted to know, and then just general questions about where the story could go from here. We were also in agreement that we would’ve easily read more years. I also mentioned wanting to know more from her mom’s perspective and other members said that they wanted to know Kenzie’s perspective. It’s always nice to have a book that we all enjoy that also fosters a lot of good discussion. Sometimes there can be issues with time travel books because things don’t make sense, but this one followed rules that did. Though that doesn’t mean I don’t still have a million questions and need more! I definitely recommend reading this with at least one other person so you can discuss it with someone.