Fic­tion

See You Yesterday

  • Review
By – May 16, 2022

Bar­rett Bloom thinks col­lege will be the start of a new chap­ter, espe­cial­ly com­ing out of a tough high school expe­ri­ence. On her first day of class­es, things start out bad­ly and pro­gres­sive­ly get worse, end­ing with Bar­rett start­ing a fire at a fra­ter­ni­ty par­ty. Locked out of her room, Bar­rett falls asleep in the com­mon room. The next day, Bar­rett wakes back up in her bed only to find out that it’s the first day of class­es … again.

Bar­rett real­izes she’s not alone, because Miles has been trapped in the same day for even longer than she has. Togeth­er, Bar­rett and Miles take a jour­ney of self-dis­cov­ery by cross­ing items off their buck­et list and fac­ing fears. Bar­rett and Miles grow along­side one anoth­er and learn to show their vul­ner­a­bil­i­ty. Solomon’s true craft is build­ing young char­ac­ters that attract read­ers, even if they’re not always the most relat­able. The time loop aspect gives Bar­rett and Miles the space to grow with­out let­ting them actu­al­ly move for­ward in time, mak­ing the sto­ry all the more compelling.

Rachel Lynn Solomon por­trays Jew­ish iden­ti­ty beau­ti­ful­ly in this lat­est YA romance nov­el by cre­at­ing two char­ac­ters that have dif­fer­ent fam­i­ly back­grounds, demon­strat­ing that there is no one way to be Jew­ish. With added racial diver­si­ty and LGBTQ+, Solomon gives us a vari­ety of char­ac­ters with dif­fer­ing rep­re­sen­ta­tions. Most of all, Solomon’s writ­ing is approach­able for an audi­ence rang­ing from high school to adult­hood filled with wit­ty humor and a love sto­ry that will melt your heart.

Eliz­a­beth Slot­nick works in the tech­nol­o­gy space but has a grow­ing pres­ence on book­sta­gram, where she reviews books span­ning across all gen­res. She grad­u­at­ed from the Uni­ver­si­ty of Vir­ginia and lives in Seat­tle, WA.

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