Vivian Lantz is determined that the first day of eighth grade will be better than the horrible first days of school she’s always had. Even though her best friend has moved from Austin, Texas, to Florida, Vivian has a plan to make this first day the best ever. She even has a message from her favorite author encouraging her to “take the power into your own hands.” Yes, this first day will be different.
Except it isn’t. It’s the worst one yet. At the end of it, Vivian is more than ready to move on to Day Two—but instead, wakes up on the first day of school again, stuck in a Groundhog Day-like time loop.
This fun novel has many of the beats of coming-of-age stories: shifting social circles, mean girls, crushes, first menstrual periods, and sibling angst, but with a magical twist and a well-done plotting of how each time loop evolves—and Vivian with it. With each loop, she reevaluates the classmates she wants to befriend, her crush, her brother, and most of all, herself. Author Kathryn Ormsbee avoids simplistic lessons of simply trying until you get things right, however, and offers a more powerful and nuanced message about what it takes to make change—and even what is or isn’t in our power to alter.
Vivian also likes “both guys and girls.” She’s known this for a while, though, so this isn’t a coming out story. To say more about her queerness could be considered spoiler-y, so I’m going to write in white on white below—click and drag over the area to highlight and view it if you want to know.
Although Vivian starts the book with a crush on a boy, she comes to realize that she’s developed a crush on a girl in her class.
Notably, too, her Pop is a bi or pan man. He’s not labeled, but says he likes “guys, girls, everyone.” At one point, he recalls a conversation with a gay friend who tried to insist, “You’re either straight or gay.” Pop explains, “Liking all genders doesn’t mean you’re confused, or too much, or not enough. It simply means you’re being you.” While Vivian says she’d be embarrassed to tell him about any crush, she’s comforted knowing that he’s said “there’s nothing weird about liking guys and girls.” Being bi/pan isn’t a major focus of the plot, but these thoughtful moments of bi/pan affirmation are worth noting.
I also appreciate that while the fact of Vivian’s two dads isn’t a major part of the book, Vivian nevertheless encounters situations where she has to correct people’s assumptions that she has a mom and a dad. This is a microaggression that many people with same-sex parents experience; while that is always unfortunate, it feels authentic here and makes the characters more believable.
A delightful read with an unexpectedly lovely message about growth and change.
Vivian and her family are White. She and her brother are adopted, and there is a mention of meeting up every few years with their birth mother, though it plays no part in the story. One teacher uses the honorific “Mx.” and is presumably nonbinary, but is mentioned only in passing.
