Bad and boring, not worth the slog to get through it. It's an interesting concept but nothing about the execution managed to be compelling.

I think the main problem with this book was that the writing style keeps it very removed from the reader - and the main plot is already confusing by itself. I think this book had a lot of potential but wish the writing was a little more mature and less purple.

This book was interesting, but overall felt like it was lacking something. The writing style was fast and easy to read though.

I didn't enjoy Ida, the writing left somethign to be diesired. I can't tell if it was the characters, the world building or the story but something was jsut lacking overall in the story. There is always room for improvement but this story still needs workshopping.

Sorry. Not my kind of book. I really wanted to enjoy it, but gave up mid-way. Too much going on and too confusing. But I am sure there are YAs and adults out there who will enjoy it.

Woooooow this book was so gripping! I cannot believe that we have a SFF book about time travel and parallel universes that also contains so much diversity and not to mention that this book is #ownvoices for genderqueer and bisexual representation! I really loved the writing in the novel and how it propelled the plot in such an effortless way. This book is at times very scary and intense but I personally loved it. Can't wait to see what else Alison Evans writes. I would absolutely recommend this book! Read it.

This book was a bit spooky and eerie but fresh and drawing as well. It was definitely an interesting read. The main character thinks she is manipulating time but is instead jumping through parallel universes and creating alternate versions of herself with every jump. The consequences are devastating and may not be undone. Some parts really got creepy and some were a bit confusing. It was hard to follow what was going with all the jumps the character was making. Overall the story flowed well but the ending left me hanging. I thought it could've been a little more thought out instead it felt rushed and was lacking. I would recommend giving it a read and very pleased I came across this book.

Thank you to NetGalley and the publishers for providing me with a copy in exchange for an honest review.

"How do people decide on a path, and find the drive to pursue what they want?

Ida struggles more than other young people to work this out. She can shift between parallel universes, allowing her to follow alternative paths.

One day Ida sees a shadowy, see-through doppelganger of herself on the train. She starts to wonder if she’s actually in control of her ability, and whether there are effects far beyond what she’s considered.

How can she know, anyway, whether one universe is ultimately better than another? And what if the continual shifting causes her to lose what is most important to her, just as she’s discovering what that is, and she can never find her way back? "

In this book, you follow Ida who possesses the ability to switch between alternate universes and change her decisions. However, the constant use of this power means that she is creating millions of different timelines and eventually, they start to blur together. I thought the premise sounded so interesting and I was looking forward to learning more about this concept but the execution wasn't quite there. Ida was, let's say, complicated. The plotline was choppy and when you add in the time jumping, it became a bit confusing. I've been left with more questions than I started off with.

Evans writing style is a little jarring. It was vague and, at times, underdeveloped which disrupted the flow. This is a very short book, and I felt that it lacked much-needed details. With the introduction of Damaris and Adrastos, there are hints to a bigger world which is never explained. I would have liked to have seen a lot more information about the parallel universes and the power that Ida had. I just wanted more. On top of this, the ending felt very rushed.

Despite my general issues, this book did have incredible diverse representation. This is the first book I have read that has a genderqueer character, and while I would have liked more Daisy, it was a pleasant experience reading about them. We also have bisexual, bi-racial, trans and gender fluid characters thrown in too. At no point did this feel forced either, which I liked.

This book did really have potential. With a little more fleshing out and more attention, it could have been a fresh and interesting take on the Sci-Fi genre. It just fell a bit flat for me.

This book was a bit spooky and strange.I actually got chills when it came to the part of Ida seeing things that she thought she had undone. The love interest is well written. She is gay but it’s not in your face and annoying it just goes with the story.This story made me think a lot about how what we do may affect ourselves now and in the future or the past.

Fantastically creative premise, smartly executed. I was deeply impressed by this debut by Alison Evans and eagerly await what comes out of her wonderful brain next.

I can honestly say I requested Ida because of its interesting premise but it just couldn't and wouldn't live up to it. So we follow Ida who possesses the ability to go back in time and change any decisions she has ever made. However, at the start of the novel, she realizes that instead of time-traveling, she is actually switching between alternate timelines - and this is what hooked me. Ida's constant use of her power means she is creating millions of different timelines which begin to blur together resulting in outright chaos. While this book gave me vibes similar to Ruby Red the plot was choppy and I found it incredibly difficult to follow what was happening, especially with the constant timeline jumping. The entire book felt it could have been 100 pages shorter than it actually was. In the end, though my dislike of the story made it a chore to keep up and the ending which was very rushed in my opinion just capped it off for me.

Such an impressive book! I loved the plot and all the characters which was so mesmerizing!
5 shining stars!

When I picked this book up, for me, it was pitched as a character traveling through parallel dimensions and getting lost within the timeline of her life. Ida, is a half-Vietnamese bisexual main character, who has since childhood possessed this magical ability of supposed "time traveling". Once doppelgangers start appearing everyone she travels and following her, the story gets a creepy twist that intensifies as the story continues.

Also, we have our love interest who is genderqueer and uses they/them pronouns that are consistently respected throughout the book was an amazing thing that I rarely see done. But when I do I can appreciate it, and also to note that this isn't an issues book, it's just about two queer character happily in love when a touch of turbulence disrupts Ida's life as she knows it. Also, Frank a close cousin of Ida is transgender and so These things combine is a part of why this book is brilliant.

Onto the writing, its a bit jarring, jumpy, and confusing in the sense that most of the time I actually didn't understand what was going on for most of the plot. If you enjoy that type of writing, go for it, but personally it wasn't my cup of tea necessarily. Because of the underdeveloped worldbuilding, I kind of felt like we didn't get to have a strong sense of the setting, therefore the sci-fi element of the story wasn't as prominent as I would have liked it to be.

I just wish that Damaris and Abratros weren't seeming so unnecessary to the story, in the sense that we don't understand why they do what they do, what general power they actually work for, and who they exactly are. Whilst they were quite intriguing characters, I wish that there would either be much more character development or that they would be erased from the story at all. No in between, like there was a weird flux here.

When I saw the author's note explained that this was supposed to be a screen-play, I kind of started to understand the abrupt and random scene changes. It would be better suited for a movie, to watch and develop on the screen than in the format it was in, in my opinion.

I would describe the plot as a meandering stroll through a calm field, the intense action doesn't kick in until the very abrupt end and that felt a little bit abrupt, it felt like you got jerked uphill and left there. But overall, I do think that this is an excellent shorter/lighter NA SFF book that features so much diversity and is an underrated gem that y'all should pick up!

**Thanks to NetGalley and the publisher for providing me with an ARC in exchange for my honest review. All opinions are my own.**

From an outside perspective, Ida is a normal eighteen year old. She has just graduated, is working a crappy job, and is trying to figure out what she wants to do with her life. In reality, she has the ability to hop back in time- erasing previous mistakes and decisions. This seems to work pretty well for her until one day she sees someone who looks just like her.

This book had a lot going for it. It was short, but fairly cohesive and certainly felt like a complete story. There was also some fantastic representation (biracial mc, queer relationships, and multiple trans/nonbinary characters). I wouldn’t say that the writing is the strongest, but it is definitely compelling. I was hooked from start to finish. My biggest criticism of this book is that it was confusing. Plots involving alternate universes/ time travel need to have a fair bit of explanation, and I feel that Ida would have benefited from more explanation.

Overall, I would definitely recommend checking this book out. I will certainly be picking up anything that Alison Evans writes in the future.

Final rating: ★★★★ (3.5/5)

I don't read science fiction/fantasy very often, but Ida is making me think I should. Many of the reviews I'm finding say that they were confused the whole time, and I'm left trying to figure out why. I would never suggest that I'm smarter or anything of the sort, but there must be something different about my perspective on this story. Maybe it's because I don't have as much experience reading SFF than other reviewers. Maybe this particular story just clicked well with me.

From the very beginning this story is intense. The first chapter narrates Ida getting into a car crash and nearly dying. Luckily she uses her powers of time travel to go back and decide to go a different route on her way home from work. This sets the scene for a very emotionally charged story.

Ida starts out believing that the power she wields is time travel, that she can travel back to a decision and change the outcome. Eventually she realizes that she is switching between parallel universes. She also thinks that her frequent use of her powers doesn't do any damage because it's not hurting anyone and no one but her knows about this. Somewhere in a different point of time and space are Adrastos, who is monitoring Ida's power, and Damaris, who is hired to find Ida and help her control her powers. They notice that the parallel universes are starting to blend together as Ida switches too much, and it becomes a race to see if Damaris can get to Ida before Ida is killed.

I've seen reviews complaining that it was difficult to follow what was happening because of Ida's constant switching, but I disagree. The main characters are well-established in the beginning. Ida is the protagonist who lives with her father and her cousin Frank, plus her partner Daisy. These characters show up in different versions in each parallel universe. Ida can tell she's not in the right universe when Daisy's name is in her phone and they don't know who Ida is, or when her father won't speak to her and always sounds angry. There are even a couple universes where her mother is still alive. Later in the book, Ida loses control and pulled out of one universe and put into another at a maddening pace, but these characters all stay the same, and in each universe, Ida is a girl looking for a purpose in her life. So yes, there is a lot of universe hopping, but I think that enough aspects of her life stay the same to understand what is happening.

The travel between universes also adds to the emotional intensity, because her relationships differ so much. Plus, when she gets closer to fixing things in one universe, it seems that she ultimately gets pulled out against her will, causing a heart pounding plot that leaves the reader rooting for Ida.

Now let's more talk about Ida for a bit. She lives in Melbourne, Australia and works a crappy job at a cafe that she hates. Something kind of unique about her is that she has graduated high school but has no interest in going to college. Part of this is because she doesn't really know what she wants to do with her life, but I love that we see a character who isn't forced to go to college and doesn't see university education as the only option. Please give us more YA stories like this. Graduating high school and going right off to college isn't the only way to live a life!

Another unusual (for YA) thing about Ida's life is that she's in an already established relationship. She and Daisy don't spend the book building up to a big first kiss or one asking the other out. With the universe hopping, it wouldn't have made sense for that to happen. Instead, Ida and Daisy are shown to have been in a happy, healthy relationship since before the book starts. I'm so tired of YA being romances disguised as fantasy or science fiction, and adding more protagonists with pre-established relationships could be the answer to this. Also, it's a good way to show what healthy relationships are, instead of focusing on all that romantic drama.

Speaking of Daisy, you may have noticed me using they/them pronouns for them. That's because Daisy is gender queer, which is mentioned on the page. In addition, Damaris and Adrastos are both gender fluid, and Frank is trans and not introduced as such. Ida herself is bisexual and half-Vietnamese. Damaris is also a person of color, but her ethnic origin isn't specified. All of these identities are mentioned on the page without making it the only thing about the character.

Final thought: Pick up Ida for a short, diverse read with a great plot! I really enjoyed it and think that others will too.

So the book goes about girl called Ida, who has always been able to skip back through the time to a choice / event that did not go well. She never thought about it too much, it just been a thing she was able to do.

Ida is half Vietnamese, half European and identifies self as bisexual. Ida is in relationship with Daisy, the genderqueer character who uses they/them pronouns. Their relationship was very fascinating and fresh. I really enjoyed both of them, in fact I was a bit sad that I couldn’t learn more about Daisy’s life, especially home story as it was hinted numerous times.

As a reader who seldom reads fantasy, I found some places in the book a bit confusing, however Evans did amazing job to explain time travel and consequences that came with it.

Overall I hope that Evans will write sequel to Ida as I am very curious what happened next!

I just couldn't get into the book, the way certain people talked just distracted me from the story. I did give it a star because I did like the main character and what the book was suppose to be about. I really wish this wasn't a DNF book.