Five First Chances
Grade : B+

Five First Chances by Sarah Jost missed being a DIK for me only because I don’t think I could ever read it again. Part of this is because one of the joys of this story is how it reveals itself in carefully building layers (a one-time experience impossible to recreate after reading), and the other is because the ending is a tough one.

Louise - Lou - Saudan is devastated when she learns, while attending a funeral no less, that her ex-boyfriend has become engaged. Four years earlier, she had fled her native Switzerland after Romain broke her heart, hoping to find a new start as a French teacher in London. Things hadn’t worked out quite as she’d planned, though. The one good friend she’d made - her flatmate Suki - asked her to move out and they’d lost the closeness they once shared, and teaching a bunch of high schoolers proves to be a real challenge. She’s just so very lonely.

Worst of all, Lou is convinced that she and Romain could have made it work, if only she hadn’t blown off a text he’d sent her a couple of years back. She had been attending Suki’s birthday party at a local pub and hadn’t known how to respond to Romain’s message. “I was thinking of you. Will I have the pleasure of seeing you at my book launch?” Fearful of having her heart broken again, she never answered his text, and, she fears, has blown her chance at real happiness forever. Now, she would give anything to be back with Romain, to do things all over again.

Then something odd happens, and Lou finds herself sent back in time to the night of Suki’s birthday party. Not really knowing what’s happened to her beyond a strong sense of déjà vu, she’s fully aware, however, that she’s been given a second chance to do things right. This time, Lou replies to Romain that she misses him as well, and before long, she’s returned to Switzerland and is back with the man of her dreams. But things aren’t as perfect as she imagines they should be. Her mother is suffering from severe depression after the death of Lou’s grandmother, and her sister, Marion, is resentful that Lou left her behind to deal with things. Romain isn’t quite the charmer she remembers him to be. She’s dismayed to discover that this life is pretty awful and that if only she hadn’t returned to Romain, things might be better. Before she knows it, she finds herself transported back in time to two years prior and the night of Suki’s birthday party…

Over the course of the story, Lou is afforded more chances to go back to the same night to start over and make changes to try to build a happier outcome. With each new cycle, she learns things about herself and grows stronger and more confident in who she is and what she wants.

I can’t speak too much more about the plot without giving away major spoilers. This is truly the case of a story revealing itself slowly, like the layers of an onion peeling away. Each passage through the same two year time period allows Lou to interact with the people in her life in different ways, discovering where she’s made mistakes and how to do it better this time around. With each round the other characters also change as Lou reformulates her relationships with them. Five First Chances does contain a romance, but much of the focus is on Lou’s learning to be her best self and on her relationships with the people in her life.

The time travel element is handled in a unique way, accepted and never really questioned by Lou once she realizes what is happening. We don’t get any explanation for how or why it happens either, in general, or to Lou specifically. You just have to go with it. The first ‘chance’ sets up Lou’s life as it progresses based on her decision to ignore Romain’s text. Each subsequent one she receives covers roughly the same handful of dates and events that unspool in different ways based on the new choices Lou has made each time around. Jost does an amazing job of offering vastly differing scenarios of how things might play out, and I was hooked from the very beginning.

One thing I really loved is how some characters appear in each chance in a different capacity depending on Lou’s choices and what she’s learned over time (lawyer Ben), or how some events become central in one iteration but are only mentioned off-handedly in another. Jost weaves story elements in and out of each scenario organically like special threads in a cloth that you can spot if you look carefully.

A side note: I read this book as a combo audio/e-book (multitasking!), and I really enjoyed the narration by Amy Scanlon. She made the characters come alive, expertly expressing the wide range of emotions portrayed in the story.

As I stated in my opening paragraph, this book does contain a rough ending. If you need a traditional happily-ever-after or even a happy-for-now ending, you will be disappointed. But I cannot recommend this book highly enough as a unique take on time travel and great exploration of a woman’s personal growth. We should all be so lucky as to get the chance to do some things over again.

Reviewed by Jenna Harper
Grade : B+
Book Type: Fiction

Sensuality: Kisses

Review Date : May 8, 2023

Publication Date: 04/2023

Review Tags: time-travel

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Jenna Harper

I'm a city-fied suburban hockey mom who owns more books than I will probably ever manage to read in my lifetime, but I'm determined to try.
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