you know, it’s hard to get the person-B-dies-and-person-A-aka-the-main-character-relives-the-day-over-and-over-again-and-tries-everything-to-prevent-person-B’s-death trope right but this book did EVERYTHING right.

when you have a trope like that where the plot repeats itself over and over again, it’s hard to make it not feel repetitive and therefore boring for the reader (see: Before I Fall where exactly that happened..) but the author did such a great job here!!! while the initial meeting of the characters was always the same, the timeline that followed differed each time and jack was always very inventive with how he wanted things to play out. there was always something new and plot-twisty in each timeline which was very entertaining!

i listened to the audiobook and i highly recommend that you do too if you’re hesitant about picking this up because it was very engaging. i think it also helped in not making the plot seem too repetitive because it was much more lively and i had a lot more sympathy for the characters. kudos to the narrator (and god bless audiobooks).

the book genuinely took me by surprise and kind of crept up on me. in the beginning i thought well this is a solid 3 star book but it probably won’t impact me much and but somehow the characters worked their way into my heart and i thoroughly enjoyed this and found myself rooting for jack and kate. i liked this much more than i thought i would and i’m SOO glad i decided to pick this up!!

rep: black main character, black love interest

The beginning of this book showed a lot of promise and I was pretty interested in where it was going for the first quarter of it. Then the story just got very YA and repetitive for me. Of course it's a time traveling book so things are going to repeat themselves but they just stopped being interesting for me.
The pros of this book are that it's very diverse, which is always refreshing. The idea of time travel in a YA book is always interesting, if it can be pulled off. The story had enough pull for me to want to read if Jack would be able to get and save Kate in the end. Certain parts of the story were definitely more interesting than others.
The cons are that Kate is in that YA quirky sick girl category. She just accepts some of the things Jack does and Jack isn't exactly the strongest character. It made me feel like I was reading a sci-fi version of The Fault in Our Stars because he's trying to save the sick girl. This book could have been much better in terms of plot and characters. As the story gets repeated, the characters feel like they're a little more hollow than the previous version. The pacing is poor because it's slow at some points and then feels very rushed the further you get. The most frustrating thing for me is that the reason for the time travel is never scientifically explained nor does Jack seem to want to figure out why or how he's doing it. It just feels lazy to me. It's like the author thought 'Hey. I want to write a book about time travel but I know nothing about it so I'll make it as vague as possible'. I had high hopes for this book and in the end, I found myself disappointed and only thinking it was okay.

Funny, heartfelt, and a bit sad. Honestly one of the best combinations there is.

Full review: https://picturethisliteraturecom.wordpress.com/2019/06/28/opposite-of-always/

Well damn.

So Jack likes Kate. Like really, really, really likes her. Unfortunately, Kate is really sick and then she dies. Yes, sad….anyways, he goes back in time to save Kate. Well, he doesn’t go back on purpose, but the universe for some reason gives him a second chance. And a third. And a fourth. And a….you guys see where this is going right? If you are familiar with the concept of time travel in movies, tv shows, or books, then you know that if you try to change one thing in the past, something else that is usually bad is bound to occur. Is Jack able to save Kate?

This started off really cute and funny, but over halfway, I just kept cringing. It just felt really dramatic. Jack and Kate for example are the kind of instant love I detest in books so already I’m trying to understand what exactly Jack feels that makes him feel the need to try multiple times to save Kate. Then throughout the many timelines, he makes many weird, stupid, dramatic decisions that had me literally laughing. His friends also regularly come up in the timelines and I really didn’t see much significance in them. I did like his parents, who were quite heartwarming and funny. The author also manages to slip some racial issues here and there!

Overall, even though I wasn’t really blown away, I was still anticipating the outcome of Jack’s decisions. The ending was quite unbelievable though. I would have prepared something more realistic, which is weird since this is literally about a book that has a high school boy that keeps coming back to a certain time to save a girl who he falls in love with after being in love with his best friend 10 minutes ago. It’s safe to say I shouldn’t have expected anything realistic.