Science fiction can be hit or miss for me—it’s not usually my go-to genre. But when an author nails it? Instant fan status. And that’s exactly what happened with this hum-dinger of a FIVE STAR debut from Melissa Pace! The Once and Future Me had such a gripping opener and was so suspenseful and action packed that I devoured it from the first page.

A woman wakes up on a bus with no memory of who she is, where she is, or how she got there. Her thoughts are jumbled, her identity blank—and things get even weirder when the woman behind her whispers cryptic things, touches her hair, and snatches her purse.

The bus is headed to Hanover State Psychiatric Hospital. The year? 1954. A time when women were subjected to electroshock therapy and lobotomies as routine treatment. When the woman is checked in, the staff calls her “Dorothy”—but deep down, she knows she’s not Dorothy. She doesn’t know who she is… but she knows she doesn’t belong here.

Then things take a sci-fi turn. She feels a strange buzzing in her body, sees a shimmer of a rainbow—and suddenly, she’s in the year 2035. A group of people call her “Bix,” tell her she has a mission, and insist she must retrieve the purse that contains the instrument she needs to jump through time.

But is this really happening… or is it a delusion tied to her schizophrenia diagnosis?

Back in 1954, “Dorothy” has a kind and loving husband, Paul, who shows her photographs proving they’ve been married for years. He insists she’s sick. That she needs help. So now the question becomes—
Is she Dorothy? Or is she Bix?
Is this all in her head… or is she truly a time traveler trying to stop something terrible from happening?

Find out for yourself when this twisty, thought-provoking sci-fi thriller hits shelves on August 19th, 2025. I couldn’t turn the pages fast enough!

Huge thanks to NetGalley, Melissa Pace, and Henry Holt & Co for the chance to read this fantastic ARC in exchange for a review. I cannot wait to see what Melissa Pace writes next!

The Once and Future Me is a genre-mashup lovers fever dream! Pace deftly combines elements of sci-fi and dystopian fiction with dark psychological thrills.

When a woman wakes up on a bus in 1954 headed to a psychiatric hospital, she can't remember who she is or what she's doing. Later, she thinks she travels to 2035 where nerdy scientists are running tests on her, but she's pulled back to 1954. The doctors and nurses tell her her "trips" to the future are her broken mind creating fake scenarios, and she can't decide if she believes them. As she tries to figure out if she is indeed crazy, she's also plotting an escape. What she learns in the process profoundly changes her beliefs about herself and the people surrounding her.

I thoroughly enjoyed living in Dorothy's witty, snarky mind, and loved how Pace used time travel and a toxic psychiatric hospital to explore the ways women have been gaslit and abused, as well as how humanity as a whole tries and fails to assert control over the world at large. Fans of Recursion and The Clinic will love this!

While reading this I felt like I was the one being gaslit.

I too, did not know whose thoughts were real, or where we were supposed to be or what time periosd we were meant to be in.

That being said, this story was enthralling, at first I was trying fairly hard to determine if the past or future was the real perspective, but once I gave up and went along for the ride, all my questions were answered. If you like an unconventiional time travel story, filled with intrigue, and a touch of a post-apoloyptic world, this will be right up your alley.

Thanks to NetGalley and Henry Holt and Co. for the eARC!

This book has an extremely interesting premise, but the writing style didn't work for me. The pacing felt off, and there was a lot more telling than showing. The parts the involved showing instead, were really good.
I wish the first part (about 75% of the book) was either longer (the entire book) or shorter, so that the second part had more time to unravel.
I will be interested to see if Pace returns to this story line.

This had potential! I was drawn in from the beginning & felt as if it could be 3-4 stars for me until the last third.

I must begin with the very end, because it significantly contributed to my rating. I was interested in the direction the story was going, until it suddenly wasn’t going at all...I thought there would be at least 20 more pages, an epilogue, or something, but no. This book has the most abrupt and unresolved ending I’ve ever read!

I loved the blending of historical fiction & sci-fi with the dystopian & time-travel elements. There was plenty of social commentary along the way surrounding autonomy, control, & mental health.

The first-person narrative was effectively suspenseful, as you are lost & confused along with the protagonist. The pacing, however, was often uneven.

I also think that the author tried to do too many things in too few pages. Some elements & themes were not developed enough. A few characters had unclear/undeveloped purposes & motivations.

I believe I would have enjoyed this more if the story had been developed further with a tighter edit.

Absolutely inhaled this one! I loved the mix of genres, the femenisit commentary and the plot itself was well executed. This is going ot be a hit for many different types of readers.

We start off following Dorothy… no, Bix… no, Dee… do we know who she is? Does she? Whoever she is, she wakes up with no memories on a transport bus to a women’s psychiatric hospital. It’s 1954. Women are locked up for all sorts of reasons, not all of them valid.

“Whoever I am, I’m kind of a b*tch.”
“Freedom depends on my cooperation.”

This story is phenomenal - angering, exciting, and super complex. This is a feminist psychological thriller with some sci-fi and dystopian aspects, but rooted in reality and history. The blurb saying it’s Dark Matter (2016) meets Girl, Interrupted (1999) is accurate. It also has tones of Gothika (2003) with the scene jumping, confusion, and terror. I thought of nothing but the story in between reading sessions.

This book is such an incredible debut by Pace and I can’t wait to read more of her work. Thank you so much to NetGalley and Henry Holt books for letting me read this eARC! I loved it!

A fun and tense psychological sci-fi thriller!
Things I liked:
-The main character was interesting and engaging to follow. She had a strong voice that made her emotions feel very real.
-The tension of the main character trying to decide if she is actually crazy or not was well done. I hadn't read the synopsis in a while so there were times where I also questioned this. I like the realistic interpretation of someone thinking they are from the future and being institutionalized, where some books brush this off without really thinking how normal people would react to that.
Things I didn't like:
-Once we got to the second half of the book, I felt like there was just too much going on. This book didn't need all the extra layers of the Tabula Rasa and the related stuff. Or, this book needed to be longer and written differently so encompass all the extra worldbuilding.
-I felt the end was rushed and a bit unfulfilling. We end on a cliffhanger so I'm not sure if there is a planned sequel or not. This book doesn't feel like it belongs in a series, I just think it should've been longer so it could give us a satisfying ending.

This book started off strong and had me intrigued early on. Unfortunately, it all went off the rails around the 15% mark. The pacing felt uneven—some sections dragged so much I found myself skimming, while others were rushed and chaotic. At times, the dialogue felt overused as a tool to push the plot forward, which made it feel forced.

The whole thing read like a B movie—corny in parts, especially with the awkwardly invented “future” language that didn’t land for me.

As for the ending? It was a mess. One moment I was reading, and the next I had flipped to the acknowledgments with no real resolution. I’m not even sure what happened. Maybe there’s a sequel planned? If so, this book didn’t earn my interest enough to find out.

Thank you to NetGalley for the ARC

At times, early in this story, it felt like historical fiction with commentary on the evils of mid-20th century psychiatric practices. The reader will certainly ask is this real or made up in the main character's head. Wonderfully paced and well-written, the questions the author raises throughout the book are powerful questions about the unfortunate practices we have overcome and the direction that we seem to be going now and how those two intertwine in the history and future of our world. Which direction do we want to go and is that the correct path to pursue?
As I said, this story is well-written with wonderful characters and I really enjoyed the first person perspective as we learn about what is happening through the eyes of the main character and what she has previously experienced. Highly recommended!

This book was AMAZING. I was hooked right from the beginning and couldn't put the book down. I loved "Dorothy's" struggle of trying to get better and believe she's from 1954, mixed with her inner voice telling her something is wrong. The psychiatric hospital was barbaric, and I enjoyed reading about each of the women in there. My only issue is I feel like we didn't get enough information about the future and I think the book ended very abruptly without wrapping up the main mission. All in all though, very enjoyable book!

Thank you Melissa Pace, Henry Holt & Co., and NetGalley for the ARC!

this one was not for me. A woman is on a bus with other mentally ill patients and it is the year 1954. They call her Dorothy but she doesn't think it is her name, and she apparently has a diagnosis of Schizophrenia. She then determines that she has is a time traveler named Bix. She has a husband Paul in one of the timelines, but she also has a mission to save the world from destruction.

That is about all I understood. I think if you like the book Dissolution you would like this. I love speculative fiction but this was very cerebral. It has the pacing of a mystery but I couldn't quite grasp the concepts and then found myself skimming.

3.75

Enjoyed some of the twists and turns of this dystopian psychological thriller but the pacing dragged a bit in moments and lacked a fulfilling ending. Although I wanted to read more from the future storyline, I still enjoyed this one and love the cover!

Thank you to NetGalley and Henry Holt & Co. for this ARC!

I didn't realize this was not a standalone, and probably would not have requested it had I known that it ended in a cliffhanger.

Is this a good book? Yes. It's the best debut I've read in a long time. I devoured it in a single afternoon. The main character, Dee/Bix, is incredibly compelling. Her confusion about what is real and what isn't grabs the reader by the throat, and the misogyny, both historical and speculative, is chilling. Stokes is a great villain. Both the fast pacing and the reveal of information feel perfect.

But I'm really annoyed by the ending.

Five stars. Will preorder the sequel.

Interesting concept with a lot of potential, but I kept drifting off while reading it because it felt super repetitive and the choices the MC was making made no sense. DNF @ 36%

I received an advance review copy for free, and I am leaving this review voluntarily. This was one of the biggest mindbenders I have ever read. This book has me guessing what was real and what wasn’t the entire way through, same as the main character. Love the theme of a dystopian world but also the undertones of being trapped in your own mind trying to figure out what is really going on around you. For a psychological thriller this is a must read!

Let me begin this review by saying… what a wild ride of a story this was.

This had me absolutely hooked from the start. I love a good time-hop story, and this one did a fantastic job of walking the line between sci fi and psychological thriller. Is our FMC a soldier on a mission from the future, or are we witnessing firsthand the absolute mental unraveling of a woman from the 1950’s? Every single chapter had me flip flopping on what I thought was actually going on and questioning my own reading comprehension at times.

The vibe of this book was so unsettling. Partly locked ward mental institution, partly unhinged conspiracy theory. It was easy to imagine an American Horror Story Asylum setting, and I was so close to hearing the “Dominique” song in my head throughout most of this story.

The first half of this book was so immersive and intense… we get to experience every nitty gritty detailed demon inside of our FMCs head during her stay in a psychiatric hospital, and the writing really leans into disorienting you along with her. At times, I found the FMCs thoughts and actions highly frustrating (self sabotage, perhaps?), but I also found them to be consistent with her fractured reality and the uncertainty she felt.

The second half of this book, the pacing went into overdrive, and not altogether in an enjoyable way. Lots of big ideas and high stakes, chilling twists… all made for an addictive read, but unfortunately, the shift in pace felt really jarring. After so much immersive buildup, the ending felt rushed and underdeveloped. The end read more like an end of a chapter rather than a true conclusion to the book. This was unenjoyable enough to knock this book down to 4 stars, otherwise this would have been a 5 star read.

Still… this book was a wild ride. I loved the blend of sci fi, conspiracy and dystopian world tension.

Thank you so much to NetGalley and Henry Holt & Company for the ARC, truly enjoyed this read!

Melissa Pace’s “The Once and Future Me,” with its extravagant and even fantastical elements, including an amnesiac protagonist and possible time travel, is not without serious literary aspect, with references to Woolf and, more regularly, Hemingway, who was much a literary icon of the ’50s time frame of the novel. Indeed, a Hemingway reference is pivotal to a plot development as the protagonist tries to work out exactly what is going on with her after she awakens memory-less on a bus taking her to a psychiatric facility.
Reminiscent the opening was for me of a novel with a similar conceit, John Fowles’ little-known “Mantissa,” in which a protagonist also awakens to strange circumstances. There, though, the situation as I remember it was more strictly interior whereas in Pace's novel, while it’s well possible that disturbing flashes of memory she’s experiencing may simply be fabrications of a disturbed mind it’s also possible that, with their vivid impressions of her being prepped in some future time for a mission back in time, her situation might be like that in “The Terminator,” where a time-traveler is sent back into the past to try to avert an event leading to a catastrophic future.
But are the memory flashes “real” or are they simply wild imaginings?
Adding to the mystery (and making the novel reminiscent for me of another book in which a protagonist suffers amnesia, Joy Fielding’s “See Jane Run”) is a man showing up at the facility who is presented to her as her husband but of whom she has no memory. Sympathetic enough, though, he seems to be, with how he intervenes with the doctors on her behalf, to make her let down her guard a bit, especially with the possibility he poses of her being allowed to leave the institute, where frightening “Coma”-like things are going on, with patients narcotized or even lobotomized.
An estimable feat of imagination, in short, Pace's novel, though finally not my cup of tea, with my preference – and here I may be giving away the show – for more distinctly realistic fiction. Still, a veritable treat for readers more enamored than I of fantastical fiction and given literary heft by the Hemingway and Woolf references and historical cred by the fact that the seemingly inconceivable psychiatric procedures depicted at the institute, most egregiously lobotomies, were in fact employed in the ’40s and ‘50s, as detailed in Jon Stock’s recent nonfictional “The Sleep Room.”

A young woman wakes up on a bus with no memory of who she is—but she knows she’s not this Dorothy Frasier everyone insists she is.

Haunted by voices and visions pushing her to “complete her mission” and surrounded by doctors and a “loving husband” who claim she’s suffering from paranoid schizophrenia, Dorothy is left trying to untangle what’s real and what’s not. It’s a wild, disorienting ride—in the best way.

I really enjoyed this one. It’s a gripping blend of psychological thriller and dystopian sci-fi, with twists that kept me turning pages. My only complaint? The timeline felt a little rushed. I would have loved a more developed dive into the backstory (and future), but even so, it was a fun, fast-paced read that kept me hooked and definitely left me wanting more.

Thank you to NetGalley and Henry Holt and Co. for the ARC in exchange for my honest opinion.

I honestly almost lost steam during the first half, but I am SO glad that I stuck with this book. Just an absolute adrenaline rush and really not like anything I've ever read before. Absolutely worthwhile.