Opposite of Always

Opposite of Always is Justin A. Reynolds’s debut young adult novel, published in 2019 and immediately establishing him as one of the more interesting new voices in YA. The premise is built around a familiar science fiction conceit handled in an unfamiliar emotional register. Jack King is a high school senior who falls for Kate at a party. They fall hard and fast, and then she dies. And then Jack wakes up at the moment they first met, with the chance to do everything over again. Each time he tries to save her, something goes wrong, and the loop continues.

What distinguishes the novel from a hundred other time loop stories is Reynolds’s commitment to the relationships around the central romance. Jack’s parents, his best friend Jillian, his other best friend Franny, and especially Franny’s complicated father all get the kind of careful character work that most YA time travel books skip in favor of the central conceit. The result is that the time loop is not just a romantic puzzle, it is a moral one, with consequences for everyone Jack loves whether or not he saves Kate. Each iteration changes the lives of the people around him too, and Jack has to figure out what he is willing to lose to save the one person he wants to save.

Reynolds writes with humor and heart. The dialogue snaps. The pop culture references feel earned rather than tacked on. And the book deals with serious topics, including chronic illness and the ways young Black men have to navigate worlds that are not built for them, with the kind of honesty that does not flatten the pleasure of reading the novel.

For readers who liked Becky Albertalli’s Simon vs. the Homo Sapiens Agenda or Nicola Yoon’s Everything Everything, Opposite of Always is squarely in the same neighborhood. For new readers, it is a strong introduction to one of the more emotionally honest YA writers working today.