Sarah O'Connor

“Memories are time travel, and so are regrets, hopes, and daydreams. When we die, the people we love carry us forward into it,” (Smale 295).

Cassandra Penelope Dankworth knows what she likes (wearing colour-coordinated jumpsuits during the weekday, her boyfriend Will) and dislikes (her job, change). Cassandra enjoys her predictable life until one day everything goes wrong: she’s fired from her job, her boyfriend dumps her, and her local café has run out of banana muffins. But it’s also on this day that Cassandra realizes she can travel back in time and she starts to wonder if, despite her namesake, she can change her future for good.

I wanted to like Cassandra in Reverse more. Chock full of mythological references and with a time travel plotline, it sounded like a fun, light-read but ultimately left me disappointed. Our protagonist Cassandra is neurodivergent, and I think it’s wonderful that we have more authors writing neurodiverse characters, but I think how this was portrayed was a bit odd (more on this later). I have my own thoughts on Cassandra as a character, but I liked Will, Sophie, and Sal. The issue is that outside of Cassandra and Will, the other characters really do take a back seat. Even as Cassandra gets to know them better they really don’t feel as fleshed out as they could be.

The time travel plot is interesting but never really delved upon further (Cassandra simply realizes she can time travel after an incredibly stressful day) and has it’s own strange parameters that also go unexplained (she can only time travel four months into the past, and can also sort of merge through time without time passing?). Why can Cassandra travel through time? With all the references to Greek mythology is this meant to be a curse or a gift from the gods? Are their any gods watching her? Why can she only travel four months into the past and not into the future?

Cassandra also realizes very quickly that she can travel through time. The first time she does it it seems like a Groundhog Day scenario, but before the first loop is done she learns that she can travel further, which just made me question how long it would take me to realize I was in a Groundhog Day scenario. Maybe the second or third loop, I think I could accept the first loop as some sort of gift/punishment from the world (depending on the type of day) but after that I’d start to wonder what’s up, figuring out I could time travel is another thing entirely. I’d probably just get mad and think I was in a circle of Hell or something.

Now onto Cassandra. She’s not a bad character to follow, her neurodivergence is obvious to readers from the start. Smale does an excellent job of not making her quirky or cute but clearly communicating how Cassandra sees the world differently from the neurotypical people around her and how this can be a struggle. Cassandra knows she comes across as strange to others and understands herself that she can’t understand how others around her see the world. She comments about feeling like she’s wearing a mask around people and how she constantly tries to act appropriately around people but usually ends up failing. And learning that Smale was diagnosed with autism as an adult, I feel like there may be a certain amount of autobiography to Cassandra, not necessarily with Cassandra’s personality but the fact that the character herself isn’t diagnosed until near the end of the book. I don’t think Cassandra’s autism diagnosis warrants a spoiler warning, while reading it I thought it was obvious the character was autistic, and at least two characters mention her being “on the spectrum” before Cassandra learns that she is (she mistakes being “on the spectrum” to be related to her colour swatches, more detail on that coming).

And I think this is an important story to write about too, especially since women are often undiagnosed with autism as kids and there have been a growing number of diagnoses in adulthood, but the revelation felt odd to me. The only character this isn’t obvious too was Cassandra. I also didn’t understand why Cassandra referred to other people as “humans” and didn’t fully understand her way of understanding emotions. Cassandra carries around paint swatches of many different colours and associates each colour with a very particular feeling. Throughout the novel Cassandra reads the colour that oozes off of people around her, almost like reading auras. It gave a feeling of synesthesia which was very unique way of storytelling, but something that was hard to grasp while reading. Cassandra also appears to have a photographic memory because when she travels four months backwards in time she can remember exact conversations she’s had with her boyfriend and knows when they’ve gone off script and Cassandra admits that she remembers everything. It’s implied in the book that Cassandra’s ability to remember things so clearly is connected to being autistic, but this is something I’ve never heard of before. I’m not autistic and don’t have synesthesia, so if anyone has more information I’d love to hear it!

I will say that Cassandra in Reverse surprised me because despite it’s synopsis and the first half the story, the time travel plot didn’t go the way I expected to, which I was grateful for. The ending also sent me for a loop, so I appreciate that the book wasn’t as predictable as I originally thought it would be.

Lovers of time travel narratives and Greek mythology will love Cassandra in Reverse and really be rooting for this unconventional protagonist. While it wasn’t a favourite of mine, I can appreciate all the good it does in the story it tells!

Publication: May 11 2023
Publisher: MIRA
Pages: 368 pages (ARC Paperback)
Source: OLA
Genre: Fiction, Contemporary, Romance
My Rating: ⛤⛤⛤
Summary:

Cassandra Penelope Dankworth is a creature of habit. She likes what she likes (museums, jumpsuits, her boyfriend, Will) and strongly dislikes what she doesn’t (mess, change, her boss drinking out of her mug). Her life runs in a pleasing, predictable order…until now.
• She’s just been dumped.
• She’s just been fired.
• Her local café has run out of banana muffins.
Then, something truly unexpected happens: Cassie discovers she can go back and change the past. One small rewind at a time, Cassie attempts to fix the life she accidentally obliterated, but soon she’ll discover she’s trying to fix all the wrong things.