- Format: Kindle Edition
- File Size: 9323 KB
- Print Length: 336 pages
- Publisher: Gollancz (27 Feb. 2020)
- Sold by: Amazon Media EU S.à r.l.
- Language: English
- ASIN: B07T6YGG8Q
Synopsis
Brooklyn, 1982. Oona Lockhart is about to celebrate her 19th birthday and ring in the New Year. But at the stroke of midnight, she is torn from her friends and boyfriend, finding herself in her fifty-one-year-old body, thirty-two years into the future.
Greeted by a friendly stranger, Oona learns that on every birthday she will enter a different year of her adult life at random. Still a young woman on the inside, but ever changing on the outside, who will she be next year? Wealthy philanthropist? Nineties Club Kid? World traveller? Wife to a man she’s never met?
While Oona gets glimpses of the future and thinks she knows what’s to come, living a normal life is challenging. As she struggles between fighting her fate and accepting it, Oona must learn to navigate a life that’s out of order – but is it broken?
Review
What would our lives be like if we didn’t live our lives chronologically, instead each birthday we jump to any given year in our future. This is the premise for The Rearranged Life of Oona Lockhart by Margarita Montimore. New Years Eve 1982, Oona is partying with her boyfriend Dale, looking forward to seeing in the New Year, her nineteenth birthday and taking their band on tour. But as midnight strikes Oona finds herself in an unfamiliar house, with a stranger asking if she is ok. Every New Year Oona will find herself at a different point in her adult life. Still young on the inside, but her outer appearance will reflect the year she is in. This is a fascinating novel that had me gripped as I followed Oona on her strange but wonderfully unique journey.
In The Rearranged Life of Oona Lockhart we follow Oona on her first seven leaps, in real terms up to the age of twenty six, but in leaps she lives in her late twenties up to her fifties. There are plenty of surprises along the way including a husband she doesn’t know, boyfriend trouble and the shock of being nineteen in the body of a fifty year old. She leaves herself letters along the way, with advice and need to know information, being young she isn’t always good at following that advice. Her mother and assistant Kenzie, who she employs later in life, are the only two who know of her leaps. Oona has a great relationship with her mother, although there are times in the leaps where one or the other knows something of the others future. However hard it must be, neither give anything away that could effect their future and keep the mystery alive for Oona.
Margarita Montimore writes with a warmth for her characters and an understanding of a young girl, coming of age and facing a myriad of emotions and challenges. What really comes through is that we shouldn’t take life for granted, that we should grab every chance at happiness and live life to the full. Oona’s story brought every emotion out in me, I laughed, cried, cringed and smiled as I went on the journey with her.
The Rearranged Life of Oona Lockhart is like a jigsaw, there are a lot of pieces that seem disparate, but once they start to fit together the whole picture starts to emerge. Written with skill and insight, and with an inspiring and heartwarming main character this book had me gripped. Compelling, intriguing with a warmth and humour that shone through, I absolutely loved this book.
