Reviewer: Rowena If I Can Turn Back Time by Beth Harbison
Publisher: St. Martin's Press
Publication Date: July 28, 2015
Genres: Women's Fiction
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Told with Beth Harbison's wit and warmth, If I Could Turn Back Time is the fantasy of every woman who has ever thought, "If I could go back in time, knowing what I know now, I'd do things so differently..."
Thirty-seven year old Ramie Phillips has led a very successful life. She made her fortune and now she hob nobs with the very rich and occasionally the semi-famous, and she enjoys luxuries she only dreamed of as a middle-class kid growing up in Potomac, Maryland. But despite it all, she can't ignore the fact that she isn't necessarily happy. In fact, lately Ramie has begun to feel more than a little empty.
On a boat with friends off the Florida coast, she tries to fight her feelings of discontent with steel will and hard liquor. No one even notices as she gets up and goes to the diving board and dives off...
Suddenly Ramie is waking up, straining to understand a voice calling in the distance...It's her mother: "Wake up! You're going to be late for school again. I'm not writing a note this time..."
Ramie finds herself back on the eve of her eighteenth birthday, with a second chance to see the people she's lost and change the choices she regrets. How did she get back here? Has she gone off the deep end? Is she really back in time? Above all, she'll have to answer the question that no one else can: What it is that she really wants from the past, and for her future?
Ever wonder what it would be like to wake up the day before you turn 18 again?
While out on her yacht with friends, Ramie is partying it up when she cartwheels right off the yacht and wakes up the day before her eighteenth birthday. When she fell into the water? She was 38 so waking up right before you turn 18 again is definitely a trippy experience for Ramie. Getting to do things differently, right some wrongs and all that made for an interesting story.
Ramie was an interesting character, one that I didn’t think I would connect all that much with but in little ways, I did. This book made me think to when I was 18, the choices that I made back then. Would I change things or not? It made me remember the kind of person I was back then. How different things were back then and how the choices I made then, molded me into the person that I am right now. Would I risk losing everything I have now to maybe change my life for the better?
Even after reading through Ramie’s journey, I’m not sure if I would or not.
This was an enjoyable book and I probably would have enjoyed the book more if the middle didn’t drag and if the lessons being taught in this book didn’t come off as so freaking preachy. There were times when I would put this book down because I didn’t want to roll my eyes down the street. I felt that I was being preached to and I’m not a fan of that in the books that I read for fun. I thought this book would be a lot lighter than it actually was and even though I enjoyed the beginning and the end, the middle was hard to get through at times. I wanted to speed things up a lot.
It was a solid story but not quite what I was expecting and wanted. I will definitely be reading more books from Harbison though because the beginning to this book was strong and the ending did a great job of wrapping things up so I’m game for more.
Grade: 3 out of 5
This book is available from St. Martin’s Press. You can purchase it here or here in e-format. This book was provided by the publisher in exchange for an honest review.
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