101 Prom Nights

I’ve never read a book in verse before but love time loop stories, so I gave this one a try. It was a fast read, and overall, I liked it. Once I got comfortable with the free verse style, it read like ordinary prose. The characters were likable, believable, and I enjoyed learning what individual secrets they had going on.

101 Prom Nights is a time loop novel with a slight twist. The main character goes to prom and wakes up the next day repeating prom day. She is a fan of the movie Ground Hog Day, so she spends the next few dozen prom nights trying to fix problems, hoping that when everything is perfect, she will be released from the loop. She finds, however, that there is more to this situation than she at first believed.

This is a novel of introspection and .friendship. It is written in verse and can be read in a little over an hour. It is a squeaky clean, sweet story that is appropriate for middle grades and older.

I was given an advance copy for free, but all opinions are my own

This was such a fun YA take on a Groundhog Day plot! Halley falls asleep after her junior prom, but when she wakes up... it's the morning before prom again. She realizes she is in a time loop, and decides that must mean there is something she needs to fix about what happened at prom. Lots of things went wrong (nasty rumors, a fight, a spill on someone's dress), and she tries over and over again to make the "perfect" prom night... but there has been even more going on at the end of the night than she even realized.

I was so pleasantly surprised by this book - I usually don't like time loop stories, yet this one really gripped me. Being a novel in verse makes the pacing fast, and I liked that the story focused on the changes Halley tries to make (instead of the parts of the day that would repeat over and over again, which is what usually bugs me about time loops). I really enjoyed Halley as a protagonist - she tells us that she doesn't feel like a main character in her own life, and the time loop pushes her to feel like an agent of change, because it is her actions that transform one version of prom night into another. There's even an interesting passage where she tells her friends what's happening and they say they are like NPCs in her video game, while she restarts at the beginning of the level every night. I liked how trying to make changes on prom night forced her to interact with people outside of her social circle and rethink what kind of person she is (and what she thinks she knows about her own best friends).

Overall, 101 Prom Nights is an exciting, interesting time loop story told as a novel in verse. The plot moves fast, the content is interesting (friendship! prom!), and the language is really accessible, so this would be a great recommendation for a reluctant reader!

Thank you to NetGalley, Rosen Publishing Group, West 44 Books, and D.E. Daly for the opportunity to read 101 Prom Nights in exchange for an honest review.

101 Prom Nights is a Hi-lo novel-in-verse following Halley on her prom night. After a prom of many problems--smoking, spills on dresses, fist-fights--Halley finds herself waking up the next day on...the same day! Prom never happened. Was it a dream, or is it a Groundhog Day (one of her favorite movies) situation?

Halley takes the knowledge she has from her favorite movie, assuming she needs to fix everything with Prom in order to get out of the time loop. As she fixes one thing, she finds yet another, and the prom scenarios end up getting progressively worse. The situation grows more complicated than Halley imagines, but she is determined to set things right, even if that means prom isn't quite perfect.

An excellent novel-in-verse about friendship and how different events can be caused or changed with small blips in the timeline, kind of like the butterfly affect. Finding the right path may be different than expected, but it is worth the exploration and risk.

A great novel recommended for teen readers.