Book Review: Opposite of Always | Justin A. Reynolds

This is book #16 overall that I read this year. It was published on March 5, 2019 and does not count toward my 20 for 2020 challenge. I launched my Books By Bullets (BBB) project recently and the second BBB post I made was for Opposite of Always. Check out my BBB post for Opposite of Always for a detailed (but simple to understand) plot breakdown.

Overall I enjoyed this book. I really liked Jack's character. I thought he had some funny moments. I also liked that he wasn't portrayed as a perfect main character. He definitely had flaws and he recognized them within himself. I really appreciate when characters are shown to have these multiple aspects and layers to them. I found many of Jack's thoughts to be really insightful and relatable. He would come up with these phrases and I would think to myself how I had never thought of it that way before. I do think his character could have been developed a bit more. Random bits would pop up in conversation and I would think to myself, "Why is this the first time I'm hearing about this trait or interest of Jack's?" But I do like Jack's character arc and the conclusions he draws from his experience.

One of my biggest criticisms is that the time loop format became a little boring for me. Each time loop wasn't distinct enough to warrant its inclusion in the story. Another major criticism I have is that Kate's character wasn't established well. We barely get to know her at all. We barely get to know her as an individual, and we also don't get much insight into Jack and Kate's relationship and how they are as a pair. In the beginning, I really liked the humor and the flirty banter between Jack and Kate. Their relationship started off really strong for me, but after the first couple of scenes we don't really get much more information about them at all. We know that Jack really cares about Kate, but we don't get to know why he cares about her so much. We aren't given insight to any deep, meaningful interactions between them. All we see is this flirty banter which gets tiring and cringey after awhile. This was detrimental for me, as I really didn't care about her or their relationship at all. This is pretty important given that the whole point of the story is that Jack keeps going back to try and save Kate because he cares about her so much. Overall their relationship just felt extremely insta-lovey because of this underdevelopment. There were also several dumb decisions that were made (mostly on Jack's part), that was frustrating to read through at times. Kate was also annoying to read sometimes. She was extremely secretive and wasn't communicating very well. I really hate bad communication in books. It's really frustrating for me to read a story where the problem could easily be solved by just talking things out and being honest with each other.

Overall, I liked the book. Even though I do have a lot of criticisms with the book, I somehow I didn't find it difficult to get through. I would give this book 3/5 stars. If you've read this book, I'd love to hear your thoughts down below!