Review

Jules loves Romeo… he isn’t dead, but in a coma from which, in an ecologically damaged, resource-scarce future, they don’t have the drugs to revive him. Jules has a paralysed arm from her failed suicide attempt. They live in a settlement in what used to be London, the world falling to pieces as people used time travelling pods to travel into the future, rather than staying in the present and trying to make it better.

Meanwhile, Ellis and the other Deadenders have access to special technology – they are the only ones who can also travel back in time. They work together, with the AI computer “Frogs” to try to tweak the past to create a better future. Then Ellis receives a new mission: wake Romeo before sunset, to save the future. He leaps into Jules’s timeline. But someone else is there, a sinister man trying to prevent them from achieving their mission.

After a little initial confusion, I very much enjoyed this – page turning action plus romance plus lots of Shakespearean (& Wuthering Heights) intertextuality. Jules and Ellis are alternating first person narrators and the non-linear storyline has been impressively plotted. Positive messages about female empowerment, gentle masculinity, taking action to save the planet, and the importance of love. Gets a wee bit didactic towards the end. The ending could have been a bit stronger, and writing is sometimes a little clunky, but lots of great moments and twists along the way. Won two Aurealis Awards (2022) for Best YA Novel and Best Science Fiction Novel.

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YA depictions of: attempted suicide (Romeo and Jules’s backstory); death; ecological decline; bullying; brief sexual references; mild references to drug use; teen pregnancy.

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