Catriona Silvey's LOVE AND OTHER PARADOXES may have taken years to write, but the long, winding path to deliver it to readers was worth every second. Throughout this beautifully written story about dreams, reality, time, love, friendship, ambition, pretty much anything to do with being alive, I was entranced by the perfectly imperfect characters in Joe Green and Eli, the wonderfully twisty plot with unexpected feints and surprises, and most of all, passages that felt as real as anything ever spoken or overheard in a crowded coffee shop that had me scribbling them down feverishly to capture magic, much as Silvey has done in this remarkable book. I received a copy of this book and these opinions are my own, unbiased thoughts.

Love and Other Paradoxes is a charming time-travel romance. However, it reads more like YA or NA romance, which is not necessarily a bad thing; it's just not what I was expecting. It's a sweet love story with zero steam but plenty of entertaining banter. It touches on some interesting philosophical discussions, like fate and whether it is possible to change one's future. One of my favorite things about the book was the setting. I've visited Cambridge many times and have a soft spot for the city, so I am always excited to read books set in Cambridge. Overall, Love and Other Paradoxes was an enjoyable read. I recommend it to YA romance fans.

Catriona Silvey's "Love and Other Paradoxes" blends time travel, romance, and philosophical questions about destiny. Joe Greene, a struggling poet at Cambridge in 2005, encounters Esi, a time traveler from the future. Esi reveals Joe's future fame and his destined romance with Diana, a fellow student. However, Esi's presence and her own agenda—to alter her past—set off a series of unexpected events, forcing Joe to question whether his future is predetermined or if he can forge his own path.

Silvey crafts an intriguing narrative that explores the complexities of time travel and the nature of love. The premise is engaging, and the author skillfully weaves together elements of romance, science fiction, and philosophical inquiry. The dynamic between Joe and Esi is compelling, and the question of whether they can defy their supposed destinies adds a layer of tension to the story.

Personally, I found the time travel mechanics a bit convoluted, and I have to admit, the characters' reactions to it all felt too nonchalant for my taste. The pacing was also uneven for me; some sections felt rushed, while others dragged on. And Joe's character? Well, his indecisiveness and constant shifts in romantic interest were definitely frustrating.

I appreciated the exploration of determinism versus free will, and there were some thought-provoking moments. However, the resolution didn't quite land for me. It felt a bit rushed, and I was left wanting more emotional depth. I know some readers appreciated how the author tied up loose ends, but for me, it just didn't quite hit the mark.

"Love and Other Paradoxes" is a suitable read for those who enjoy time travel romances with a touch of philosophical exploration. Fans of Catriona Silvey's previous work, "Meet Me in Another Life," and readers who appreciate stories that delve into questions of fate and choice will likely find this book engaging.

Rating: I would rate this book 3 out of 5 stars.

My Rating System:
1⭐️: The book didn’t hold my interest and/or had significant issues that overshadowed any redeeming qualities for me, but generally not my cup of tea. Most likely did not finish the book.
2⭐️: The book didn’t quite resonate with me, and while my experience wasn’t remarkable, I did finish it. It had some redeeming qualities and potential but fell short in execution. Recommendable, though with some reservations.
3⭐️: Good read, but didn’t quite stand out. Still worth recommending to others.
4⭐️: Really enjoyed it and stayed engaged throughout. Would read book again. Definitely recommendable.
5⭐️: Incredible writing that made me deeply connect with the characters. I was completely absorbed in the world and didn’t want it to end. This book stayed with me even when I wasn’t reading it. I'd gladly reread it and highly recommend it to everyone!

I received this book for free from NetGalley, this does not affect my opinion of the book or the content of my review

Meet Me in Another Life is one of my favorite books and when I found out Catriona was coming out with another book I NEEDED to get my hands on it IMMEDIATELY.

I am a HUGE fan of parallel universes and time travel. I love the thought that there are multiple me’s out in the universe doing different things based on the different choices that I made and I am a firm believer in destiny, deja vu, and the butterfly effect. Silvey writes stories that capture the essence of those very things beautifully with characters you invest in and stories that keep you hooked. In her stories anything is possible and I LOVE that!

This is a fun, unique story that you can binge in one sitting. It’s just over 300 pages and is lighthearted and very romantic. There are two main characters, Joe from 2005 and Esi from 2044 and the way they meet is really one of my favorite meet cutes of all time. Esi is on a time travel trip. Just the thought of that was so cool to me! There are all these strangers in the street staring at Joe and it really made me think, could this be possible in real life? When people stare at other people in the street are they also on a time travel trip?! I know thats a little farfetched but imagine if that were really possible? That is what this story made me constantly think about!

I love the deep character development you get in this one and how each character grows and learns things about themselves. What I loved most is that the entire story is told from Joe’s point of view. It’s not often in a romance story that you get the male perspective and I really enjoyed that. And the ending….I can’t WAIT for you to read it!

I am really, really hoping there is a sequel for this one!

Joe Greene longs to be remembered as a poet yet despairs of ever writing anything noteworthy. Then he encounters a time traveler and he finds out he's famous in the future. Now he has to decide what to do with that information. Does it mean he's invincible and indestructible? Does he need to work to make those things happen or just sit back and let it happen? It was interesting to think about. What is your responsibility and what's appropriate? Do you intervene in others' lives? It raises a lot of ethical questions. Joe runs the gamut in how he uses this future knowledge.

The time traveler tours was an interesting, funny concept. I laughed at some of their antics. I also enjoyed Joe's roommate Rob and his obsession with the Assassins game. Esi was the most fun, however. I pictured her as Zendaya. I liked seeing her blossom throughout the book.

There is swearing in this book. The characters sleep with each other but there's nothing graphic. Thank you to William Morrow for providing me with a free e-copy of this book. All opinions are my own.

This book had me guessing from beginning to end! It was such a wonderful story of romance and fate, asking the question whether or not we really can change the future. Every part of it had me sat and I didn't put it down after I reached 60% until it was finished. Absolute must read for romance lovers.

Love and Other Paradoxes is a delightful romance for fans of wibbly-wobbly, timey-wimey fun. Cambridge student is a particular favorite microtrope of mine, and Joe Greene is an exemplar of them. I loved that, unlike many Cambridge students in fiction, Joe struggled to keep up with his studies and, while awed by the history of Cambridge, did not necessarily feel like it was a second home. His experiences felt more real and lived for his struggles to fit in. Esi's futuristic colloquialisms and knowing statements about Joe's future were hilarious, and I greatly enjoyed the way her views of future Joseph Greene rattled present-day Joe Greene. Their competing beliefs on time travel and one's ability to affect the future were excellent foils, and the tension between whether Esi, Joe, or neither of them would get their desired outcome was perfectly tuned. A surprise hit of the novel was Joe's roommate, eternally obsessed with his games of Assassin. Even this whimsical detail was woven well into the final climax of the story. I had expected a little more time-travel talk and theory based on Silvey's previous novel, but while Love and Other Paradoxes is lighter on the sci-fi elements, I still really enjoyed this read.

“You’re from the future.”

Love and Other Paradoxes was a story about how your future could change if you knew your future. Joe is a twenty year old student at Cambridge who aspires to be a poet like the greats he's studying, but as he's studying, he's also getting a heavy case of impostor syndrome. A middle class Scot in the rich environment of Cambridge and raised in a household that was encouraging but also worked to keep his feet on the ground, Joe feels lost as he tries to measure up and graduate. When he bumps into the barista he was having some chemistry with and he picks up the book that fell out of her purse, he sees his name on the cover and picture of himself as a sixty year old man. As a panicked Esi tries to grab it out of his hands, Joe runs and finds himself in his dorm room with a piece of his future.

“I want to be remembered.”

Told all from Joe's point-of-view, the first half of this had me locked in as Joe learns that Esi is from the year 2044. She's accessed Joe's current time, 2005, by paying a time tourist company that allows people to take trips to observe famous people, which he'll be in her time for writing poetry. The time travel gets as deep as “I traveled through a wormhole” for most of the book and instead focuses on how knowing your future could change a person. Joe knows that he writes an impactful and famous book of poetry for a girl he's only glimpsed on campus and they fall in love later in life. So when he has the chance to meet this girl, he enters a poetry contest with one of the poems from his future book and ends up paired with her as she'll do a dramatic reading of the poem, he's all in, ready to start to his future now. This leads to Joe living life different, taking more chances and slacking off from school, as he thinks nothing he does matters as his future is already determined.

Determinism was nice in theory, but it didn’t actually save you any effort.

After the rush of knowing his future wears off, Joe starts to wonder if he's actually changing his future with his current actions as he learns that Esi's whole point of taking the time trip wasn't to observe him but to try and change her mother's future, as she ends up dying in a car accident when Esi is eight. This leads to some themed questioning of determinism and we get a second half that meanders and jumps weeks at a time as Joe begins to realize that not only what he does now still matter, the future he thought he wanted may not be what he truly wants. The beginning also had Joe and Esi developing a friendship that had some sparks but the middle abandons them a bit as Joe tries to start his romance with his future wife early. I missed their companionship and when Esi comes back into the picture in the later second half, they had lost some momentum for me.

He wanted to be with her, even if it was temporary, even if it was doomed. He wanted to taste every moment they could possibly have before it was over.

If you've been or are familiar with Cambridge, you'd probably enjoy the setting descriptions and Joe's roommate and other secondary characters added to the flushed out feeling of the world. It just felt like the beginning was more tightly held together and then the second half got lost in where it wanted to go and how to work everything out regarding the time travel aspects. You won't get solid spelled out answers to how everything wraps up for the characters but more of “infinite universes” and a kind of weak easy solution for how Joe and Esi's romance endures. This started strong with an interesting concept, the underlining discussion on determinism was thought provoking, Joe and Esi had beginning spark, but then the second half lost its way and Esi disappeared for too long, only to anemically drift back in. If feeling nostalgic for 2005 Cambridge, with some romance, wormholes, infinite universes, and inventive weapons for the campus game Assassins, this had those eclectic elements.

I loved this book. I think it was just something about the romance and how I wasn’t able to guess exactly how it was going to come about. Also, the characters felt so realistic that I barely noticed the two characters falling for each other until it became apparent to them. I was also a fan of how both characters were at odds with how they viewed fate and life. It was a cool little story with a romance that unfolded in a sort of unique way. Definitely would recommend others check this story out. 4.5 stars

Thanks to NetGalley and the publisher for the arc

Oh, how I adored this story! It is funny and witty, but also very profound in places. Also, I loved the take on time travel! Imagine, running time travel tours and then having the hubris to actually think it won't be royally messed up! But our main character Joe doesn't know what he's in store for when he meets Esi, and reading it all play out was delightful! I also loved Esi, and was so mad at Joe for actually trying to wind up with the incredibly frustrating Diana. But, watching the growth that Joe and Esi undergo was worth it, frankly. I loved the charm of this story, and I can't recommend it enough!

Bottom Line: Heartfelt and charming, this book won me over completely.

This book started off so slow, I didn't think I was going to finish. Plus, the main character, Joseph Greene, is really unlikeable. Eventually, the story found its footing and became more interesting. Joe became more tolerable, but it was Esi who saved the book for me. She's a great character, and makes the story more interesting. The sub-plot regarding her mother took a twist that was pretty clever, and made for a good ending.

Overall, the book was fine. I give it 3.5 stars, rounded to 4.0.

Love and Other Paradoxes offers a fresh take on time travel, weaving a love story between one person desperate to reach the future and another determined to rewrite the past. It’s a fun, fast read with an unexpected reveal that caught me off guard. I’ll always have a soft spot for time travel romances, but I wish the love story had been more fully developed—delving deeper into the human emotions at its core rather than leaning so much on the sci-fi mechanics.

Thank you to Netgalley for the ARC!

This one was a feel-good, time travel book! It follows our MMC Joe Greene, an aspiring poet, who accidentally meets a girl named Esi, who's from the future. Esi's on a time-traveling tour and the star of this tour is none other than... Joe Greene! Through Esi, he finds out he's a famous poet and he's about to meet the love of his life/his muse -- Diana. He gets help from Esi to help him woo his future love but what happens when he falls for Esi instead?

It was a breath of fresh air having the main character be a guy for once! I loved the development of Joe and Esi's relationship as well. It wasn't too slow of a burn and the plot wasn't too focused on them but rather on Joe's character development and Esi's reason on why she went back in time (it wasn't because of Joe). It was also a funny read-- especially when Joe first meets Diana

I lost focus for some parts in the middle of the book but the last half did pull me back in. It was a satisfying ending even though I thought we were going to be left with a cliffhanger! I'll definitely read more from this author in the future!

What drew me to this book was the thought of traveling back to 2005. We meet Joe, a struggling college student with a pretty unremarkable life, it seems. He's a poet who once won a contest, but has had trouble finding inspiration since. He seems like a generally okay guy. But weird things happen in his daily life - tokens of admiration are left for him, and a group seems to follow him on the regular. One day, in a coffee shop, he meets a girl, Esi, who runs away from him. She drops a book that is somehow written by Joe - it tells of a life he hasn't yet lived, a love he hasn't yet met, and is full of flowery love poems. When Esi reveals that she's from a future where he's a great poet, he becomes obsessed with making that future happen. The story makes you wonder about how time travel works, how much of our futures are predetermined, and if we can control our fate. Joe's mistakes and decisions kept me riveted. I had to know the outcome. The thought of time travel books makes me wary, worried they will be horribly technical and I'd spend hours looking up words I don't know or understand. But this author does a great job at keeping it accessible and light enough that you can breeze through the story without getting bogged down in technicalities. It's a clean romance, so great for any reader who likes a sweet story.

3.75⭐

LIKED:
- The overall plot of this book was just a fun time. A time travel tour and the implications behind someone peeling off that isn’t world ending? Great. Love it.
- The fact that Joe is a poet is just goofy in a great way. The idea of someone becoming a famous poet twenty years from now is also just silly in a charming way.
- Boy howdy was I excited that this was all in his POV in third-person. We get that so rarely and I just ate it up. And Joe was a fun character to be in his brain. His penchant for the morose and asides about his existence were just hysterical. We love nihilism.
- Esi was cute. I don’t think she was as fully fleshed out as I would have liked for her, but she was 20, so it’s more forgivable.
- Vera and her whole deal in the end is just great. Good for her.
- This cover is…fine. But the UK cover is so much better. Them leaning against each other? So adorable.

LAMENTED:
- I didn’t love the, like, pseudo-love triangle. I really didn’t like Diana in general and having Joe just be lying to her the whole time was just frustrating. I also really just didn’t care very much about the poetry performance thing? I’m not sure why, it just didn’t click.
- I found Rob obnoxious. Not enough that I couldn’t get through it, but enough that I noticed myself starting to skim his lines, which isn’t great.
- Also on that line, the Assassins game thing didn’t hit for me either. It was a fun bit for the third act, but it felt so superfluous throughout that I had no attachment to it and found myself a bit confused during the culmination
- WHY is there no epilogue?? This book is SO ripe for one and with everything that was discussed in the final 10% of the book, I was really sad to not see a glimpse into the future for these two. It was a bummer. Especially because…I did need that to really believe that they would stay together and that she didn’t just…ruin Joe’s life entirely.
- I like this title, but the hourglass as the ‘x’ just doesn’t work with this design. The sand in the hourglass needs to be adjusted because it really doesn’t look like ‘paradoxes’. It looks like ‘parado es’.

LONGED FOR:
- An e p i l o g u e
- A bit more substance to the relationships
- Less emotional infidelity

Will I read the next one? : Maybe / probably. I liked this but I do think the premise did a lot of work, so I think it is dependent on book description.

'Love and Other Paradoxes' follows Joseph Greene after he learns that time travel is real and he's destined to marry his great love and become a famous poet after running into Esi. This was marked as romance, but there is very little romance in this. It more about Joe's existential crisis about making the future happen, but also is it what he wants to happen? It could've been really interesting but, and I don't exactly know why, but Joe gave me a red flags vibe. Like, when he told Esi he knew she didn't really want to leave because she didn't use the safe word. He flips between Esi and Diana which I think was supposed to be romantic but it was more frustrating. We focus so much on Joe that even though Esi is the other main character, we don't get too much about her, which is a shame because she's a Caribbean/African British woman who lost her mom young. Her perspective could have offered a nice balance to Joe's. The ending seemed like a cop out as well, but if you're looking for a low stakes cozy romance with no spice, this is a good pick.

This book took me a little bit to get into. I was nervous early on that I wouldn't like it, but once we found out that Esi and Joe can alter the future I was fully invested. This book is a love story but with fun time travel elements. If you are even remotely interested in that give it a chance.

Love and Other Paradoxes by Catriona Silvey was such an amazing read.
Okay to say this book was amazing would be an understatement. It was so brilliantly good that I devoured about 60% of the book in one sitting and had to force stop so I don't end up with dark circles the next day.

Speculative romance can be very hit or miss for me—and when I started Love and Other Paradoxes, I thought it was a miss for the first half. A love story with a time-travel twist, it follows Joe Greene, a student a Cambridge in 2005 with aspirations of becoming a poet who runs into Esi, a time traveler who is desperate to change her mother's future and who has a copy of Joe's eventual book of poetry, which chronicles his love story with a fellow student from Cambridge.

And if you thought that was already messy enough, let me tell you, it is not. Joe—who has a poster of Donnie Darko in his room and fully understands the lesson of that movie—pays zero attention to important details and uses all of this information in incredibly reckless ways while also panicking about the future changing and asking his (great) physics-major roommate questions about time travel. And then: there's the romance bit, where Joe, who desperately wants the future where he is a best-selling poet madly in love with his wife, and Esi are falling for each other.

I was ready to give up on this book, but then: around halfway through the tide starts to turn and I'm happy to say I genuinely enjoyed the last 20% and thought the way the author wove the A and B-plots together was pretty delightful. So even though this book was a mixed-bag for me, I did enjoy the scifi-tinged narrative and am glad the author was able to end the story in a satisfying (and theoretically accurate!) way.

This was cute! A very quick read about a time-travel love triangle. My two wishes are that the time travel aspect was treated as more of A Thing and expounded on more so that it felt more mysterious and magical, and that the characters were developed more. This is definitely more plot than character driven, so if you like to get deep into relationships and people, this may not be for you. The important side characters like Rob and Diana were mostly just there to move the story along, but I would’ve loved to know more about them to connect with the story more. Esi’s growth and changes could’ve been better portrayed. For me, all of the characters just kind of fell flat as individuals. But overall, I did have a good time reading this book and will check out the author’s other works.