I read both parts I and II last year, so am continuing the journey with Tara and her growing group of time anti-travellers. Tara is stuck in the 18th of November of an unspecified year. A more serious version of “Groundhog Day“, Tara experiences the confusion, loneliness, challenges, and opportunities of living the same day over and over. While relationships and interactions with others is nearly impossible, leading to isolation and loss, the opportunities to experiences other places and take on new things (albeit for one day only) present many possibilities. As she learns to navigate through the world without being in it, she eventually meets a fellow traveller.
In this next instalment (the third of seven), Tara and her new friend, Henry, compare notes about their experiences and the “rules” of their existence. When they meet, Tara has been stuck for more than 3 years (she started at age 29, and is begins here at effectively 32). Henry has been travelling more extensively, flying from Germany to the US several times to visit his son (essentially, having repeated visits on 18 November for weeks at a time). Eventually, they encounter Olga, a 17-year-old idealist and wannabe activist (seemingly modelled on Greta Thunberg without the marketing) and Ralf, an IT worker and somewhat compulsive do-gooder. This growing band of folks stuck in the same day decide to stick together and establish a home base and some projects to keep them occupied. Essentially, they are going to try to prevent accidents to others – if there’s a car accident on 18 November, they will try to alter something (call the person and tell them their appointment is cancelled so they stay home) to avert the tragedy. They have all the time in the world to do this, as each tragedy is reset each day, but they have their work cut out for them as the rules of communicating and documenting things in their static reality are complicated and not always predictable. Some of them hope that, if they change enough events, the universe will allow them to move forward into the next day. At the end of this instalment, the group discovers more people like themselves, and a commune begins to emerge. To be continued in book IV.
I enjoyed this book, but it wasn’t as good as the first book. Perhaps the endless repetition of the days is less engaging, and the ongoing mystery of how this strange timeline works and why these people have become stuck in it is less intriguing. But the writing remains good (even with the change in translators between the previous books and this one) and Tara continues to be a grounded and convincing protagonist and a reliable narrator. I don’t love the other characters (Henry is a bit arrogant, Ralf a bit of a flake, and Olga is quite annoying riding around on her high horse) but I’m intrigued to see where the story goes next.
I’m also interested to see how the characters deal with aging – by the end of part III, Tara has been stuck for more than 5 years, so at 34 is starting to look and feel a bit different than her 29yo self. But the regular people, including her husband whom she visits for several months at a time, has not aged at all and consistently repeats his 18 November day unless disrupted by Tara. The despair she experiences when she reveals herself to him, tries to explain her situation or (more often) makes up a reason for why she suddenly is home when he thought she was away, and then awakes the next morning to see a total lack of recall for him – all of that is excruciating. Her loneliness and sorrow are most keen when she is so close to him and yet beyond reach.
The next volume is in my pile, but I’m going to take a break in this series for a bit.
Fate: hanging on to it in case I need to look back at it when I read the next one.
2 – about time
4 – published 2025 (the translation part)
8 – female author
13 – set someone I’ve never been
15 – a number in the title
21 – a translation
36 – part of a series
rclr 
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