REVIEW | Lots of Cheesy Romance, No Time Travel Theory (Until We Meet Again by Renee Collins)

[note note_color=”#186C87″ text_color=”#ffffff”]Until We Meet Again by Renee Collins • November 3, 2015 • Sourcebooks Fire
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Country clubs and garden parties. The last thing Cassandra wants is to spend the summer before her senior year marooned in a snooty Massachusetts shore town. Cass craves drama and adventure, which is hard when she just feels stuck.

But when a dreamy stranger shows up on her family’s private beach, claiming that it is his property-and that the year is 1925-Cass is swept into a mystery a hundred years in the making. As she searches for answers in the present, Cass discovers a truth that thrusts Lawrence’s life into jeopardy. It won’t matter which century he is from if he won’t live to see tomorrow.

Desperate to save the boy who’s come to mean everything to her, Cassandra must find a way to change history…or risk losing Lawrence forever.[/note]

First sentence: “Date: July 8.”

Time traveling + romance? Oh, how I fell for temptation, and it spat me out with my reading soul hurting.

You’d think I’d trust my instincts more, but any time I see time travel + romance, I’m hopeful it’ll be different, but it unfortunately never is.

Until We Meet Again tells a time travel romance about a pair of characters from two different time periods—Cassandra in 2015 and Lawrence in 1926—who meet each other on the beach of a Massachusett’s North Shore house. As the two characters learn about each other, the pair fall madly in love with each other (*rolls eyes*). However, Cassandra discovers that Lawrence may be endangered, and she and Lawrence try to figure out how they can prevent anything bad from happening to him. Ugh.

The Problem with Until We Meet Again

• The theory of time traveling was never delved into.

For a book that involves time travel, you’d think the book would go into the mechanics of it, right? Explore how it works in this world, and why two characters from different time periods are meeting? Is Cassandra time traveling herself? Why? Yeah, no, wrong. You don’t get that. All you get is the usual “chaos theory” that gets disregarded because ~love prevails anything even when people cease to exist. These teens don’t understand the gravity of time travel, nor do they particular care because they’re in love.

• It was focused on the star-crossed romance that was terribly cheesy.

It’s always a bad sign when you’re hissing at the characters every time they talk to each other.

The romance happened in a blink of an eye, and the writing for it was not up to par with the complicity of time travel. Cassandra and Lawrence’s romance played out the usual way: girl meets mysterious boy on the beach; they flirt; she is attracted to him, but is so quick to judge him for being rich and snotty because he misunderstood something; she can’t keep away from him; they learn that they’re from different time periods; chaos theory; Cassandra tries to keep away but can’t; declaration of love; and blah, blah blah. It’s painfully cheesy.

• The 1920s could pass off as a modern time period.

Just because you say it’s the 1920s and throw a few slang from that era doesn’t make me believe it’s the 1920s. Readers need more than that to imagine this time period—to experience it. There was no confusion on Lawrence’s part the things that Cassandra says, which I thought would’ve puzzled him. For a guy in the 1920s, you’d think he’d question all the things that comes out of Cassandra’s mouth. It just seems that the 1920s was like the 21st century, but with internet. Time hasn’t changed much in this historic neighborhood. *eyes rolling*

• The characters didn’t feel well-established or natural. 

All the characters grated on my nerves because they didn’t feel natural. Dialogues and emotions felt like the characters were force-fed lines, reciting lines from a script, and were trying to force readers believe it, unconvincingly. I didn’t learn anything about the characters except that Cassandra, whose family is well-off, constantly sulks about being stuck in a rich neighborhood any chance she gets, and Lawrence is an empty vase who writes his own poetry. Any character development was sacrificed for the sake of carrying on the farce of the romance between Cassandra and Lawrence.

• Do I recommend Until I Meet Again?

No. If you’re interested in the time travel aspect, this is the wrong book for you. Pick up All Our Yesterdays. However, if you want a quick read and are able to handle a sweeping romance about two people from different time periods (that doesn’t talk about the time traveling aspect), go for it.