Oona Out of Order
A Novel
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4.0 • 576 Ratings
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- $11.99
Publisher Description
NATIONAL BESTSELLER
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"With its countless epiphanies and surprises, Oona proves difficult to put down." —USA Today
"By turns tragic and triumphant, heartbreakingly poignant and joyful, this is ultimately an uplifting and redemptive read." —The Guardian
A remarkably inventive novel that explores what it means to live a life fully in the moment, even if those moments are out of order.
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.
APPLE BOOKS REVIEW
What if youth wasn’t wasted on the young? That’s the question at the center of Margarita Montimore’s irresistible novel. Beginning in 1983, when she is just 19, Oona Lockhart finds herself transported every single New Year’s Day to a random year of her adult existence. Initially, she visits her life in 2015, as a wealthy, middle-aged woman in New York City, before jumping backward to the early-’90s hedonism of her club kid days. Montimore has a lot of fun with the time travel genre, inviting us to revel in the popularity of grunge music and anticipate the advent of Instagram. As Oona reckons with her foreknowledge of the future, her personal choices become potentially fate altering. Oona Out of Order is as delightful as it is impossible to put down.
PUBLISHERS WEEKLY
In Montimore's whimsical second novel (after Asleep from Day), a woman experiences the unsettling effects of time travel. In Brooklyn on New Year's Eve, 1982, the day before college student Oona Lockhart's 19th birthday, Oona is more interested in the rock band she has just joined, and particularly its guitarist, Dale. As the ball drops, Oona feels an odd sensation ("Escalating heat stirred within her as particles scrambled to escape and rearrange, but not now and not here"), and then finds herself in the body of her 51-year-old self in 2015, surprised to be living in a brownstone instead of the SoHo loft she'd imagined sharing with Dale. There, a personal assistant recites a message from Oona's younger self explaining that she will be bouncing around in time through all the years of her life, hitting each only once, always making the change as the new year begins. As the years flash forward and back, Oona comes to life as a reckless club kid, a grieving older woman, and a wife who has no memory of her husband. Montimore sustains the concept by rooting the story in Oona's relationships, employing sparkling humor as Oona struggles to make sense of each year's new circumstances. This witty, fantastical exploration of life's inevitable changes is surprising and touching.
Customer Reviews
Fascinating and Filled with Things to Consider
I find myself thinking positively about this book throughout the day.
Mildly entertaining
Interesting premise. The ending was too abrupt and a bit of a cop out. I feel like this book could have been a lot more than it was
Recommend
I loved this book with its unique plot and insight into ups and downs and life experiences that shape out perspective over time.