I’m a sucker for pretty books. When my favorite local bookstore (shout out Little Green Bookstore!) got an ARC of Repeat After Me and asked if I’d be interested, I jumped sight unseen into the tepid, drug filled waters of Jessica Warman‘s chaotic island world. I had less than zero idea what this book was about. But boy did Entangled out do themselves with this edition. Of course, never judge a book by its cover, blah blah, except we all do that. There is a testament to this by the number of books I own with spooky skulls on them. Not all of them are great. But all of them look great.
Thankfully, Repeat After Me is a magical, hilarious, relatable adventure in a beautiful package. And that folks, is what we call 5 freaking stars. A group of students and their much aggrieved teacher head to a private island for a senior trip. Each character is unique, flawed, and has a special place in my heart, although I couldn’t stand spending 3 hours with some of them. After Emma, eats ceviche from an immortal octopus, as one does, it is Friday, FOREVER. Every morning she wakes up, and it is Friday. Never getting to the weekend. I won’t go into detail here, but I will post some spoiler thoughts under the tag below because I have so many.
The humor was spot on; it was topical enough that I think the YA audience that it is intended for will appreciate the nod but not so much that someone not in the know couldn’t read it. I even picked up on a reference I knew from TikTok or two. That’s right, millennials have infiltrated. It’s listed as for an older YA audience. Everything is very behind closed doors and references are made to most things rather than full scenes. These are high school teens and they behave about as expected. Even throughout the humor and over the top characters, the story is a thoughtful one. I empathized with the characters. I wanted to see them through and loved watching them grow. Kind of coming of age under the weirdest possible circumstances.
Repeat After Me Spoilers
There are 3 people ultimately caught in the time loop from our original group. Max for like over 41 YEARS, Emma and Bradd, for like a month. The fact that this teacher did not just wake up every morning and end all these kids and go back to bed shows a level of restraint that is incredible to me. I could not have handled the same day, with the same teen angst, for decades without becoming a homicidal maniac. Both kids kill people and it’s implied that Max has done that too, but like, no, I’m not even speaking to any of you. It’s been 40 years. I’m done.
Also, Bradd does exactly what you would expect a teenage boy with endless days to do. Jack off all day every day. And to death. He does it to death. And also on drugs. Kind of. I don’t know if I’m impressed or concerned. But Bradd honey. Do less drugs. And get some help.
I will, however, continue to not eat seafood. Especially not octopuses, octopi, octopodes? Spell check says all are correct.
Get it from Amazon.
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