I wanted to like this one, but it just wasn’t happening. I really liked the premise and thought it would be a hit, since I like the idea of time loop/ground hog day style stories. But this unfortunately, fell flat for and is yet another Reese’s Book Pick miss for me. Womp womp.

This engaging novel by Holly Smale belongs on summer reading lists. It has been selected for both the Good Morning America Book Club and America’s Book Club, no mean feat for the author’s adult debut. Cassandra also received a starred review from Booklist.

Imagine the worst day of your life and you will know how Cassandra is feeling as the story opens. Think of a “straw that broke the camel’s back” and have empathy for Cassandra when she cannot get a banana muffin, just one thing she REALLY wanted on a bad day. Turn the pages to find out how Cassandra fares from this fraught beginning. By the way, note the authorial voice in the beginning of the book as comments are made about books’ openings.

Readers will discover that Cassandra goes on to have unique experiences, not ones that the ordinary reader can have except by proxy. Watch what happens as Cassandra reverses. You will root for her.

Protagonist Cassandra has autism which offers her a particular way of looking at the world. She shares this with Ms. Smales who beautifully describes this in the story.

Many thanks to NetGalley and Harlequin Trade Publishing for this title. All thoughts are my own.

CASSANDRA IN REVERSE
Holly Smale

One sentence book review:

“If I was stuck in a time loop I wouldn’t want to be reading CASSANDRA IN REVERSE during any part of it.”

Cassandra is stuck in a loop. She keeps repeating a single day and this single day is a whopper of a day.

First, she gets fired from her job then she gets attacked in time square then unbelievably they run out of her favorite banana muffin only to then later be dumped by Will. Cassandra’s latest love interest.

Can Cassandra figure out how this is happening and why this is happening before it’s too late?

After my first reading session with CASSANDRA IN REVERSE I was reluctant to pick it up again. I didn’t want to spend time with Cassandra or in her universe. I could’ve DNF’d but I’m so behind on my Goodreads reading challenge that I really needed a finish.

This book is such a mess.

CASSANDRA IN REVERSE starts out as would any romance book with time travel elements. Most of the story takes place within a few months and is repeated and rehashed over and over again.

Then at about halfway a curveball storyline is thrown in with a convenient twist to try and pick up all the pieces. It was far too late in the story for me to care and the entire second half of the book felt like it was running off course, directionless.

CASSANDRA IN REVERSE…⭐️⭐️

Thanks to Netgalley, Harlequin Trade Publishing, and MIRA for the advanced copy!

Cassandra is a loveable main character who I was rooting for from the first few pages. A woman who knows what she likes, and what she doesn't, she is navigating her way through work, relationships, and society in general while feeling very socially out of place most of the time. After an exceptionally bad day, she discovers she has the ability to travel back in time and uses it to redo some of the moments, this time perhaps with a bit more social knowledge of how she could have changed the future, hoping for a more favorable outcome. While I very much enjoyed Cassandra and all her quirks, I did struggle a bit getting through this book. I enjoyed watching Cassandra understand her past, learning the best future for herself, and becoming more confident in the woman she is, even in situations she would very much like to not be in. I would recommend this book for fans of characters that are unique, but also enjoy sci fi reads, the time traveling I had a hard time keeping track of, but that may have just been my attention span. I do believe the overall theme of this book, outweighed any part that I struggled to get through, and I'm glad I finished it. Thank you to Net Galley and Harlequin Trade Publishing for an advanced copy of this book, all opinions are my own.

Cassandra has just had the worst day, her boyfriend Will has broken up with her out of nowhere, she was fired from her job and told she is unlikeable, and her flatmates are pushing her to move out. Then she discovers she can go back in time and change events. This starts a plan to alter many decisions from the last 4 months in order to fix the state of her life

I DNFed this at 40%. Unfortunately this one was not for me at all. I wanted to love this one. I usually enjoy books that play with time. Also novels that has quirky characters who are neuro divergent is something find so fascinating and complex but this one feel flat for me. The character slowly changing this about herself for a guy was bugging me so much. Cassandra never became endearing for me, and i struggled to connect with anything in the book.

Cassandra in Reverse by Holly Smale is a great novel! It was really greatly written and I really enjoyed it.

I really enjoyed this fun, light sci-fi love story. Cassandra in Reverse features a neurodivergent character who, in my opinion, isn't presented as a gimmick or a stereotype and yet is also accessible and relatable. The time travel element is spare on details (what is this, where did it come from, how does it work) but that really doesn't matter within the confines of the story and the things that Cassandra needed to see/learn. I think this is going to be a Best of 2023 title and would be a great book club read.

This is a quirky story that reminds me a little in tone to An Absolutely Remarkable Thing. But note the story is nothing alike. Cassandra is on the spectrum and has trouble relating to people. She’s at a crossroads as she has lost her job, broken up with her boyfriend and is losing her place to live, when she realizes she can go back a little in time to try and remedy things. A lot of the book is her tinkering with her timeline. At times she has no idea she’s gone back in time and there is a little humor as she tries to figure out where she is.

While she does keep going back and trying to fix things, it is really more character driven and about her growth, figuring out who she is, and reaching her potential. Cassandra annoyed me at times but was mostly endearing. She quite is unique and different from any character in a book you’re reading right now. I am such a fan of second chances and Cassandra gets many chances to get things better or right.

There isn’t a huge twist in this one, but there are small ones as Cassandra deals with the fallouts from her time travel and she see what consequences there are for her tweaks to her life. I really rooted for her as life is slightly more difficult for her than others and I wanted to see her succeed. You’ll never guess where this one is ultimately going and it won’t matter as you grow to love and root for her.

I think this could be the feel good book of the summer. It is quirky and fun and I can see why this was Reese’s book club choice.

The beginning was okay but I don’t think the book is anything special. Thank you for ,the chance to review it.

The premise of this book is sooo intriguing but I was hesitant once I found out it was a RBC pick but I don't relate to those picks as much as others, but I was pleasantly surprised!

It felt like a big, warm hug and had so many surprising elements that touched me. It reminded me of Ooana Out of Order and was more about just time travel.

I loved Cassandra's character. She was quirky, fun and I thought she was a one of a kind book character. Her self growth and self reflection was such a fun journey to read and I saw many parts of myself in her. I feel like with this book and Cassandra herself, the more I think about it, the more I love it and reminisce on it. Although I'm giving it a 4 stars for now, I think this is one that will quickly jump to 5 stars the more I reflect.

Loved this one and can't wait to see what's next from this author!

When I heard this was chosen as Reese's book club pick, i was even more stoked to read this advanced reading copy. This book fell flat for me and just could not get into it. This is a book that would be better adapted for tv. thanks netgalley & the publisher for the ARC

Thank you to Netgalley and Harlequin Trade Publishing for the eARC! I love a good time travel story, especially when there’s self discovery and mystery involved: Cassandra In Reverse ticked all of the boxes and infused some humor here and there. This was such a good story, I loved it and felt that it really captured Cassandra’s identity, I appreciated the emotional journey she embarked on and time travel was an excellent vehicle for her self realization. The inclusion of synesthesia was unique helped to immerse the reader. I do feel like this was just a tad long but overall an excellent novel. 4.5 ⭐️⭐️⭐️⭐️🌟

The story concept of time travel was interesting and if you like Greek mythology, you will like the way Holly adds it into her book. Cassandra, the main character, has moments where she is likable, not often for me though.
After being dumped, fired, and having her break time café run out of her favorite banana muffin, she discovers that she can travel back in time. This becomes interesting for Cassie who doesn’t get along well with others. When something happens and she realizes she should change it, she turns back time. Often I said to myself, I am not going to finish the book as the character was getting annoying, but I stuck it out to the end, and I am glad I did!

Unfortunately this book was not for me. It was very confusing at first and a little italics sentence of what time table we are in would have been helpful. Although, maybe that was impossible given how often she switched. It was just a chaotic plot and I wasn’t a fan of the Greek mythology. I did like Cassandra and would have enjoyed the book more if it was her figuring out who she was without time travel. Also, in these recent times, I don’t think she could have made it to 31 without knowing she was autistic or at least on the spectrum or even what on the spectrum means. It doesn’t seem feasible. I wish I had liked it more.

Thank you to Mira Books and NetGalley for the ARC.

Cassandra Dankworth is having a really bad day, dumped by her boyfriend, fired, and getting thrown out of her apartment; but she gets the chance to start it over and fix what went wrong. Not only that, she discovers that she can go back a few months in time, or only a few moments to repair even the smallest of mistakes. What she can’t do is go back ten years, as she would like, to fix the most life-changing moment of all.

Cassandra has always been told that she is not a people person, doesn’t understand the emotions of others, and is difficult to get along with. She has spent a lifetime seeing the colors of other’s emotions but not knowing what they mean, nor do others understand her. Once she realizes that she has some control over time, she sets out to fix herself and her encounters with the people around her, in hopes of not having that opening horrible day again.

Through her pitfalls and do-overs we learn about Cassandra’s life and relationships that have helped make her who she is, with a dose of Greek mythology thrown in. In the end, she has also learned more about herself, who she is, and who she does and doesn’t want to be.

I have always been fascinated with time travel and read every time travel novel I find. The time loop is also fascinating, and though this treatment of the time loop is a bit different, it is a refreshing change. Highly recommend this book.
Thank you to Harlequin Trade Publishing, MIRA & Netgalley for allowing me to read and review this book.

This was a hard pass for me and I should have DNFd it. I could not get in to Cassandra and I have LOVED other neurodivergent characters. I think the beginning was too heavily focused on her relationship with Will that I stopped rooting for her and just tirelessly read through the rest of this ARC.

What was supposed to be eccentric came across to me as unfunny. The relentless and overwhelming Greek mythology 🤢 The time travel 👎🏼 A misstep from @reesebookclub for me.

Thank you to the author, publisher and @NetGalley for this ARC in exchange for an honest review!

4.5 stars rounded up: Cassandra in Reverse is a story that I had to get into, then it took off for me. If you find it a bit confusing and too much at the beginning, hang in there. Casandra Dankworth works in public relations, which I found funny considering she is on the autism spectrum and doesn't have very good social or people skills. She likes things done a certain way, she doesn't want to be touched and she certainly doesn't want other people to touch her stuff. She runs away when things get tough and shuts herself off when she is in a awkward situation. Thus, she has been fired, her boyfriend has broken up with her and her local coffee shop has run out of banana muffins, disrupting her day completely. Her roommates also want her to move out, so she is definitely at loose ends. Fear not, she blinks and her day begins again. She can travel in time to go back and fix things. Unfortunately until she fixes the right things, she will repeat time over and over.

This sounds like something I had read about before, but it has a totally different feel to it because of Cassandra. This story is told from Cassandra's POV, so what she sees, and interprets may not be what everyone else sees. I guess when you change something in time, there is a chain reaction and she has to be careful that she doesn't disrupt too much. Her main goal is to fix her relationship with Will, the man she has had the longest relationship with, ever. Cassie has had a lot of heartbreak in her past with the death of her parents and something that happened with someone who keeps writing her letters that she throws away unopened. She has blamed herself for her parents' accident because they were on their way to her graduation, and that has colored her life. She wasn't able to go back that far and fix it though, as much as she would have liked to. It takes a lot of do overs until she finally figures out what she needed to fix. I love that she got fired more than once, and eventually saw her co-workers in a different light. As Cassie continues to make different decisions and choose different paths, she finds out who she really is and what she wants to do with her life. I enjoyed being in her neuro-divergent mind. There were times I laughed out loud, and times I wanted to reach into the book and give her a hug. I enjoyed seeing the journey Cassie takes in this book, finally figuring out how to fix her relationships, at least the one that is the most important.

An excellent book from a unique perspective. We follow Cassandra as she tries to navigate life in a world that she doesn't understand. Even though Cassandra is in her thirties, she struggles to make friends, keep jobs and not have meltdowns in public when things don't go as planned. The outside world may look at her as mentally ill or just difficult but neither is correct. You will commiserate with the daily reality that she faces as someone on the spectrum. Cassandra is given a skill that allows her to re-evaluate her decisions and see herself as others see her. If you have someone in your life that is on the spectrum you will recognize some of the Cassandra's triggers. The ending makes sense for who Cassandra is but I wish she had been a little more selfish in the end. The best book I have received from Net Galley to date. Thanks for early access to this excellent read.

This book didn't keep my interest as much as some of the other picks that Reese's Book Club has chosen in the past. I liked the quirky main character, Cassie, but I also got a little bit tired of her neediness near the middle of the story. I liked how she reconnected with someone from her past and the way she made some much needed friends as the story went on, but I wasn't a big fan of the overall story line. The time traveling and reversing time thing was a little hokey in my opinion.

Cassandra may be considered unlikable by some of her colleagues, but she’s perfectly lovable to me. Seeing the world from her perspective makes it so much more interesting. Between the time travel and Cassandra’s personality quirks, this book was a page-turner from the beginning. Much of the first 3/4 was somewhat predictable, but the ending had several twists I didn’t see coming. If you enjoyed “Eleanor Oliphant is Completely Fine” you’ll definitely want to give “Cassandra in Reverse” a read. It’s a heartwarming story of family, acceptance and forgiveness.