Book Review: A Timely Love

A Quantum Love Story by Mike Chen

Publication Date: January 30, 2024

Summary from Goodreads:

The only thing harder than finding someone in a time loop is losing them.

Grieving her best friend’s recent death, neuroscientist Mariana Pineda’s ready to give up everything to start anew. Even her career— after one last week consulting at a top secret particle accelerator.

Except the strangest thing a man stops her…and claims they’ve met before. Carter Cho knows who she is, why she’s mourning, why she’s there. And he needs Mariana to remember everything he’s saying.

Because time is about to loop.

In a flash of energy, it’s Monday morning. Again. Together, Mariana and Carter enter an inevitable life, four days at a time, over and over, without permanence except for what they share. With everything resetting—even bank accounts—joy comes in the little a delicious (and expensive) meal, a tennis match, giving a dog his favorite treat.

In some ways, those are all that matter.

But just as they figure out this new life, everything changes. Because Carter’s memories of the time loop are slowly disappearing. And their only chance at happiness is breaking out of the loop—forever.

Confession:

This is a very sweet love story with a lot of humor and heart that happens to be wrapped up in a science fiction novel. The characters are wonderfully engaging and have their work cut out for them as they try to break out of a time loop created when a particle accelerator blows up.

I really enjoyed both characters. Carter is a failed quantum physicist, who really enjoys food and has some issues with his family. Mariana is a neurophysicist who always follows the rules and has never really connected with any one on a romantic level. Both of them are quite nerdy and set in their ways, but they are engaging and become friends over the course of many loops. We get more of the story through Mariana than Carter, but I enjoyed learning about them both and they felt very realistic.

I enjoyed the near future aspect of the world here. It is 70 years in the future, but the tech and science seemed very plausible. I loved the AIs that were used throughout the story. Both of them were quite interesting and had some personality of their own. Also, Mariana’s job sounded very interesting and totally plausible. The author does a very good job with the technical aspects of the story, explaining quantum physics and time travel in a fairly understandable way. Some of it still went over my head, but it by no means hindered my interest in the story.

The story is also very grounded in the themes of friendship, grief, hope and connecting with others. Carter and Mariana don’t fall instantly in love, but it is very gradual over the course of the story, and even as they both start to realize their feelings things start to fall apart. Mariana’s grief over the death of her stepsister is also a very prevalent theme in the story. Shay is always with her in her heart and she often hears her encouraging her to continue when things get a bit tough. There is a lot of hope and connecting with others throughout the story, especially towards the end.

The story isn’t exactly fast paced, but it isn’t boring either. There are some nice twists, especially towards the end, that will keep you on your toes. There is a bit of repetitiveness with the time loops, but I guess that is sort of the point of them. But I loved the little breaks they took to just to enjoy life sometimes too. The ending was a little bit of a let down, I just wanted a tiny bit more of a happily ever after for them both.

If you like time travel, or love stories, or even stories with likable and believable characters this is one you want to give a chance.