First off, the diversity in this book is ON POINT. We have a bi-sexual and bi-racial main character, a gender queer love interest together with trans-gender and gender neutral side characters. Kudos to Alison Evans!

I found Ida's life situation as being someone in their early adulthood trying to figure out their place in the world and what to do with their life super relatable.

I also really liked the commentary in the story on the decisions you make effecting your life and having to live with those choices.

I did find parts of the story a little confusing and there was an unnecessary side plot.

Overall an enjoyable read and I would definitely check out more from this author in future.

this was very different which I love, but it was not at all what I expected and it had some moments that truly took me out of the story. I appreciate the diversity immensely though <3

Ida is a normal, unmotivated, individual who can time travel or that is what she believes. She is in a relationship with a non binary artist. She lives with her father and autistic relative and has no idea what to do with her life. All she knows is that she can jump around in time. At first, she only uses that power in emergencies. But, then it becomes addictive. Then, Ida loses control of her powers, having no control concerning when she jumps. The places where she lands get more surreal and frightening with each jump. Soon she discovers that there is more to her power than meets the eye.
In many ways this book is nothing to write home about. It is a conventionally written speculative fiction work. However, this book has a diverse range of characters and that is its major selling point. Both the autistic and non binary characters are fairly well drawn. This book would make a great option for those wishing for a diverse YA/ spec read.

I have some mixed feeling about this book.
The synopsis sounded amazing but the actual plot is kind of confusing. I really paid close attention, thinking I wasn't reading it well enough, but it was just confusing to me. I don't know if it's just me or others have had the same problem but I just couldn't follow along with the plot.
I loved the diversity of the characters. There was a lot of different aspects of diversity in this book and I thought that was pretty great. However, I couldn't connect with the characters because the writing style is so plain and even a little emotionless at times.
I really wanted to love this book because it's so diverse but in the end, it just wasn't as good as it could have been. If you're looking for a super diverse read, I'd say take a chance and pick Ida up. But this isn't the highest quality of writing I've read.

I did end up liking this book. Ida was an interesting main character and the conflict was completely understandable (who wouldn't use that power if they could with no consequences) but it did get very confusing at times. I didn't quite understand what was going on by the end but I was satisfied with it. I think it's hard to get a time travel/alternate universes plot in a way that's interesting and not confusing and I don't think Ida quite managed it.

Despite a very intriguing premise, the actualisation of the premise just didn't do it for me. I felt the narration was almost too casual (example: "Like I'm a magnet or something"), the sentences were occasionally a little choppy and sometimes seemed like they were missing words. Points added for a diverse cast though.

(I received an ARC of this book on NetGalley from the publisher in exchange for a fair and honest review.)

Ida is your ordinary teenage girl, wondering what she’s going to do with her life after high school. Perfectly normal, except that she can travel back in time to change any decision she’s made. Life seems to be chugging along until one day, she can’t “undo” one of her decisions. As things around her start to shift, she has to hurry to discover the truth before her whole reality slips away.

How awesome is this premise?

I really enjoyed many aspects of this book. I’m always down for anything about time-travel or quantum theory, and I loved Ida, Daisy, and Ida’s father as characters. I’m also always looking for more YA novels to normalize queer characters and relationships (without being totally focused on those relationships!), and Ida definitely lived up to that. I also really enjoyed the writing, particularly the actual moments of changing/slipping.

In the author’s note, it says this novel began as a screenplay. Honestly, I think this would have been more impactful in visual form. I really struggled to keep track of certain scenes, like the subway or the bathroom, or the café.

I’m definitely intrigued, though, and will check out the author’s other novels.

This book was amazing in terms of mood and characters. You can feel the creepiness and eerie atmosphere whenever Ida was in one of her "bad" universes and the doppelgangers were stalking her. I wish the secondary characters had received more attention though: Daisy was wonderful and it would have been really interesting if she had been dragged into Ida's problems and had a bigger part in the plot. The same goes for Adrastos and Damaris, they were my favorite characters but barely saw anything of them. The diversity in the book was great and all the characters were equally lovable.

Now my biggest issue with the book is how I felt that the plots were loose ends. I kept waiting for an explanation of why the alternative realities were so different, what happened so Ida's mother was alive in one, or she didn't know Daisy in a another, but that never happened. The ending felt anticlimatic because I had imagined the moment she had to return to would be when she had made some big decision that changed her live, yet it seemed to be a random moment in her life. The narrative could use less description of the action, the pacing was a bit weird at times, and more work in the places/worldbuilding,

In general it was an enjoyable read with amazing and diverse characters but I feel that after a strong beginning the plot got less interesting and I just dragged myself through the rest.

Narrative was way too choppy and difficult to follow for this to be deemed a good read. It is a brilliant idea but the way it was executed simply made it hard to enjoy.

The character of Ida really drew me in in the first part of the book, and her trying to navigate around her abilities was incredibly well written and enjoyable. The plot bounced around a lot, and it created as much confusion in me as it did with Ida and the rest of the characters.
I loved how diverse this book was! It's not often that I read a book with a bisexual main character who's Vietnamese (or anything other than white, really). I loved the character of Daisy, they're always there for Ida (except in some alternate timelines).
Damaris was possibly my favourite character though, and I loved the interactions with her and Evans.
I feel (like the author) that this would have been better presented on screen instead of on paper, but it was an enjoyable read!

Let me just start off by talking positives.

The diversity was such an A++ aspect of this book I have never read a book with a genderqueer character that uses they/them pronouns before so this was a first and I felt this was just so well done and I believe it’s #ownvoices too so that is pretty much why it was so spectacular! Other than that, there is a lesbian relationship with the main character being biracial (half Vietnamese) and bisexual. There is also a transgender character in here who is Ida’s cousin Frank.

If that isn’t considered diverse I don’t know what is!

Other than that, I really wanted to read this book because I had heard some fairly positive things from my blogger friends and was quite interested to see what all the hype was about! I also wanted to read more diverse #ozya and share the love on my blog so that more people would be inclined to pick it up!


What let me down however was how confusing the whole story was. The idea was pretty great and very unique but I had no idea what was going on half the time. The storyline was too fast paced and often not well explained and not very captivating. It had so much potential but it really let me down!


The setting of this world would have benefited from extra attention to detail to the world building. It was left a little underdeveloped and it wasn’t very ‘zoomed out’. The focus simply remained Ida and her friends and family which I found quite odd in a book where Ida’s actions resulted in serious consequences.


The writing style was also a little jarring and difficult to get into because it threw you into the action from the very first few pages and while I usually like that in a book…it didn’t work with this one.


I found myself not really loving the characters either. The book is quite short and there isn’t much character development that really makes you ‘click’ with the characters. They were always held at a distance and it made it difficult for me to really love either Ida or Daisy.


Unfortunately, other than the diverse aspects (which were really phenomenal) and the idea, I didn’t really enjoy this book that much just because it was a little too underdeveloped for me to really get into it.


However, this is quite a short and diverse SFF read by an Australian author so I do recommend you pick it up as I have a lot of friends that did really enjoy it and I don’t want my review to put you off!

The first thing you need to know about Ida is how diverse it is. The protagonist, Ida, is biracial (Vietnamese and German), and bisexual. Her partner, Daisy, is genderqueer (they/them/theirs pronouns). Her cousin, Frank, is a transboy. And then the second POV character, Damaris, is genderfluid and her love interest/boss/person, Adastros, is also genderfluid. Can we get a HELL YES for this diversity? Family queerness! Friend queerness! These things are so real, and to finally have them portrayed in a novel was great.

Ida was an interesting sci-fi story because Ida herself didn’t really have a full grasp on her abilities so as the reader I didn’t really have a full grasp, either. Damaris’s point of view gave a little more insight into what was actually going on every time that Ida travelled from one point in time/outcome to the time just before that. The end reveal about Ida’s abilities was incredibly interesting because it was a take on parallel universes that I have never read about before.

The climax in Ida was quite long, and interspersed with moments of normality, softness, and love. It could have tipped over into ‘too much’ quite easily, but I felt like it balanced the climax and the length really well. I was never bored, in fact I wanted to keep reading during this part because I wanted to find out where Ida was going to end up, and how she was going to ~fix~ everything.

I shipped the ships. I thought Ida and Daisy were incredibly cute together, and I loved how Ida supported Daisy without being pushy about it. I’m not even sure that Damaris and Adastros fully count as a ship but damn did I ship it. I would 100% read an entire book about these two.

There were a few things that I wanted from Ida, however. Keep in mind, though, that I wanted these things because I cared about the characters and the story.

1) More of Ida and Daisy.

These two were CUTE, and I wanted more of them. Not necessarily on page romantic stuff because there were quite a few adorable scenes with the two of them together, but more of their history and how they became a couple.

2) More about Daisy’s home life.

Daisy’s home life seemed to be pretty shit on all fronts, but the reasons why they didn’t want to be at home a lot was never explained. I know that it was clear that they didn’t want to talk about it, but I feel like a deeper connection would have been made with them had their home life and background been expanded upon.

3) More of Frank.

Honestly probably my favourite character in the book, and I would have loved to see more of him throughout. Just a little bit more on why he was living with Ida, and what he was like. Considering that he didn’t play a huge role there was quite a lot about him, but because those scenes endeared him to me I wanted more page time with Frank!

4) More of Damaris and Adrastos.

I know I mentioned that I wanted more of these two as a ship, but I also wanted more about them in general. They have lived for so long so they would have done so many things, and met so many people, and I would have loved even a few little glimpses into their pasts and their lives.

~

Overall, Ida was a very enjoyable YA sci-fi that turned the popular element of parallel universes into something completely new. The storyline was intriguing, the characters were great, and honestly you should support this awesome and diverse Aussie YA book.

© 2017, Chiara @ Books for a Delicate Eternity. All rights reserved.

This book is seriously amazing. There was not a single thing that made me say "I don't like it now because of this". It was a bit confusing at times and it had a lot of info dropping but I gave it a free pass since it was the first book. We need as much information as possible in the first book in order to absorve the details of the world.
Something that I enjoyed a lot was the transitions between scenes when Ida skipped. Either the willing skipping or the forced skipping it was phenomenal.
The diversity in this book is great. It was definitely the main reason why I decided to read it. Ida is a fat bisexual PoC; Daisy is genderqueer (and I think PoC as well) and uses they/them; Damaris is genderfluid and uses she/her; Adrastos is genderfluid and uses he/him. Also I love how these identities aren't the character arcs of any of them.
This is definitely a book I'd recommend to anyone!
(I'll say more on my review once I post it on my blog)

OMG reading through this was an endurance trial that kept my heart in my throat for most of the time while I stayed immersed in the claustrophobia and urgency that the writing managed to hold for the whole story.

Ida is a woman who thinks she can time travel. She lives with her father and cousin, Frank. She also has a relationship with non-binary character, Daisy.

Well, sometimes she does. It's confusing, because in some timelines, Daisy doesn't know her at all. And, in others, her mum is still alive.

Apart from the fact that it turned out to be slightly different to time travelling that Ida was doing throughout, I felt it was an amazingly original addition to the magical realism genre.

The entire story is told between Ida's first person narrative and that of Damaras who is tasked with finding the 'original Ida' and stopping her from slipping back and forward in her timeline due to the problems it is causing. Apart from a very slightly slow period in the narrative just towards the end of the novel, I just loved it.

EXPECTATIONS: This book popped up on Goodreads feed for me some time ago and it's blurb got me interested. However I kinda forgot it eventually and one day when I saw it on Netgalley as Read Now I realized it was the book I really wanted to get my hands on eventually so here we are.

THE WORLD: Okay so first thing first. Some of you well probably most of you are more broadly read then me so this would not have been a big thing but I personally have not read many books with LGBT characters so this was a big surprise to me. And no the surprise was not LGBT to me, it was the fact that there are no straight characters in this book. None at all. Also I shamefully have to admit I have never read a book that had genderqueer character in it so when the main character started using they for one person I got a little bit confused at first. I know I feel very embarrassed by this but I think in order to underline what this book gave me I just have to admit to this shameful inexperience of mine. So that having said now the world itself is very interesting. We have this main girl who sorta can time travel. Except that she isn't time traveling and instead she is traveling dimensions so in reality she kicked out whoever is in that dimension and takes over basically. Also we have these people who sorta are officers of this dimensional traveling so if you do this too much you will be visited by them.

CHARACTERS: So main character is named Ida of course, she is a school drop out and is in the stage of figuring out what she wants to do with her life. And in a mean time she is picking up extra cash in a coffee shop. I must say I didn't mean Ida much, there were some good and bad things about her but all in all she was pretty nice characters. Tho, I have to admit I wasn't exactly crazy about her either. We had also a few more characters, like a cousin living with Ida who I still have to figure out. He wasn't a character really on it's own but he/she was intriguing. Believe me or not I am still not sure which pronounce I should use. And then there was Daisy who was again just a side character, a love interest of Ida. So the they in this book was used for Daisy. I am still really carefully now that I am writing about Daisy but I have to just say that this kind of character taught me really much. I sorta dislike big hyped diverse books because I have experience with them just being good for diversity only but this book was a perfect example that book can be interesting as well as diverse. I have learned a lot from this book and its characters.

ROMANCE: Ida and Daisy are together. That is clear from page one. But what I think was cute was that the romance in this book had nothing to do with gender. This is very rare.

GOOD: Again this book did a perfect job combining diversity and plot. It might be because I adore dimensional traveling but I really loved how much I learned in this book.

BAD: Way way too short. This was the only minus for me.

OVERALL: I really enjoyed the plot as well as diversity, it even made me discuss gender issues with people and realize I am not as aware as I would like to thing. I had an eye for gender studies for some time now as a thing I would like to learn about but most of the time it is about women rights which of course I enjoy too but I kinda now believe that either I am just not aware of other gender studies or there are not many there. One way or another, this book was great for that. My only problem as mentioned above was it's length and because of that I have it only 3.5/5 stars.

This storyline took me on a wild ride from beginning to end. I didn’t know exactly what to expect when going in to reading this book, but I found the further I got into this read, the more complicated things got for our main character. The storyline is incredibly unique and creative, we’ve got characters that are incredibly charming and interesting in their own ways. The pacing moves in a way that’ll make you want to keep reading. It’s not necessarily slow, but it does take a bit of time to pick up. What I enjoyed is that you learned things as our main character does since there’s not much backstory on her ability due to Ida not really know much about it herself. With that being said, the story doesn’t really pick up until Ida realizes what is happening and why she’s acting the way that she is, and this probably doesn’t come up until a little bit into the book.

The concept of time travel and the doppelgänger’s was well-done, nothing was overly complicated or too intricate. I think Evans played it safe by doing this since our main character was completely clueless about her ability until later on, and I do find that the story ends in a way that might lead up to a second book that might include more technicalities of these abilities. We do get another perspective from a much more knowledgable character who is trying to track Ida down to tell her what is happening, this character gives us just enough insight to provide us with some of the answers that we were wondering.

We had scenes filled with action, suspense, and tons of curiosity. Ida is extremely personable and lives a fairly relatable life. I enjoyed the integration of different genders within this book, I definitely agree that this is more of a New Adult genre than anything else. Although I did enjoy reading this book, I do wish it was a bit longer and included more to the story. I think this was a good set-up if she were to write sequel, so hopefully that is the case. The story did come to a complete circle and the resolution was pleasing to read, but with that being said, I do think that there were a lot of specifics that were kind of glazed over. I would definitely recommend giving this a read, it is a fairly quick and easy read with a pleasurable conclusion. I give it 3.5 out of 5 stars because I still feel like there was a lot missing that could have been useful to integrate into this novel, but I did enjoy reading it and I would definitely read more of Evans books. If a sequel were to be released, it would be something I would pick up!

Starts with a Groundhog day like experience (this happens a lot in the book) & your brain hurts trying to figure it out and you are intrigued. Ida thinks she can time travel but what she is actually doing is switching between universes. She does this a lot & it causes problems for the other verses & herself & this is where things get confusing for Ida, and interesting for us.

I think this book had difficulty deciding what it wants to be, throws to much at us at the same time & what happens usually when you try too many things at once? You do not do any of them the justice they deserve. The premise was good & I wish the author would of spent more time on that. Maybe the story should of been longer, or maybe we had too much of Ida basically whining or mooning over Daisy (sorry but it's true).

The book brings up interesting theories & topics, like parallel universes, where decisions can lead us, how every choice may lead to another timeline, what does time really mean? Also it talks about the agony of loss, how we should appreciate what we have, & to avoid trying to change every little thing, because you end up missing out on what is right in front of you.

My overall estimation is that this book needed more work. It could of been something really really special.

I am an avid fan of sci-fi books, time travel and the sorts, but I wasn't able to get into this read as much as I had hoped I would. There were many great parts in Ida and various characters that kept me intrigued. Just found it wasn't enough to keep me coming back for a few more reads. There were many times in the earlier chapters I found to be moving along at a very slow pace. And yet when it picked up, many of it did really well. Her ability to "time travel" was interesting and the doppelgangers added a nice touch and tie in to the whole novel.

And even though parts of this was a hard take for me, many chapters kept me reading. I wanted Ida to succeed in finding her mom, to have that time with her, but also knowing that it would not bring her exactly a peaceful end to things. How she fought hard for those she loved and tried her hardest to come back to them even when it seemed their was no more chance of it being so. Ida is a very strong character in this, coping with everything thrown at her. When she finds out she might be at the center of something much bigger, she deals with it with grace and understanding.

"It's time, I tell myself, breathing in. The life I built that has no mother but has my father, Frank, Daisy, and Pilgrim. Even Georg. My job that I don't like, my boss I hate. Everything. I nod once and don't let the tears get out this time. My eyes are dust from tired and there are more doppelgangers in the night who try to take my body. I fight them all. The others try to force me out but I won't let them. I can barely feel my limbs. This is no time for crying. I close my eyes and focus on the tea stains."

As Ida comes to the truth about everything in her life and her ability, the readers are introduced to Adrastos and Damaris. They are meant to keep order when it comes to people like Ida. There was not a lot of information given about these two characters, which I had hoped as the book moved along that we would find out much more. They became likable right from the beginning, especially Damaris. It would have been nice to have a little bit more of a back story for her. They made things more interesting and it brought another element to the story that kept me reading.

Ida gets more appealing as the doppelgangers enter the scene. Creating an atmosphere that catches the readers attention even more. There are a few explanations as to how they have been brought into Ida's realm. And a bit of a confusing explanation on what happens to them once Ida chooses her path. There is not much detail in Ida's life either to let us know how she even came to possess her ability to create these ripples. It would have been nice to have gotten some sort of summary for that.

As we near the last pages and start getting more into this novel, an abrupt end makes it harder to love. I'm left wanting more, more answers, more of Adrastos and Damaris, clearer answers as to where the doppelgangers have ended up, what becomes of Ida, how she had these abilities, maybe her mom was at the center of it all (could have lost her life that way, somehow she was entangled in all of this?). So while I did enjoy many parts of this read, and loved some of the characters in here, there were too many bits that left me on the fence with this one.

***I received this copy from Echo Publishing via NetGalley in exchange for an honest review. All opinions are my own.***

Science fiction about time travel

Ida Wagner discovers very young that time can be manipulated and that this is very handy to alter the little things in life – a different meal in a restaurant, to bring an umbrella or not, but there are always things that stay the same, no matter how hard she tries.

Skipping through time allows her to go back to any decision she has made and choose the other path, however, both paths still exist, in different universes. This is leading to problems - Ida is moving sideways instead of forwards and the further she gets, the harder it will be for anyone to find her. If she gets too far, she will be forever wandering, lost in her own lives that are not really her own at all. The paths between the universes are getting worn, slippery and the barriers between the universes are getting weaker. Damaris is dispatched to find the first Ida – like finding a needle in a hundred haystacks. If the barriers between the universes get too weak her other selves will be able to pull her out of this universe.

I found the book a little too obscure, filled with characters that I found difficult to relate to, definitely for someone who knows the meaning of zines.


Saphira

Breakaway Reviewers received a copy of the book to review

Ida believes that she is able to time-travel, however she really travels between parallel universes.

She does not see the issue (or the difference) between these two until she sees a faded version of herself on a train, and then again on the park, and again in her own house. Within the first few chapters we are introduced to people that want to find her and stop her from switching so much between universes. Ida is the story of a girl being chased by herself.

I related way too much to Ida's doubts about school, work, and life in general. I believe she is an interesting character to follow around and I was surprised about how much I care for her. The rest of the cast in this book is very diverse -Ida herself is half German-half Vietnamese -we see characters that are bisexual, transgender, genderqueer, and more. I liked that aspect of the book, however I wished that Ida's background had been explored more; it only came up when there were racists comments.

I like the writing style and the voice of the author/Ida, although there were parts were the pacing seemed to change every other page, which is something I don't necessarily like.

Ida is a fast paced and intriguing story, the concept is very interesting and unique (only I've read about this, if you have recommendations please let me know!). I think people who like Sci-Fi, time travel/parallel universes, and a diverse cast will definitely enjoy this.