Fun, well-plotted, twisty, emotionally touching and filled with romantic hopefulness–and a geeky, cheeky sense of scientific greatness–Love and other Paradoxes proves to be both heedlessly romantic and optimistic and offers an emotionally-complex spin through the could-bes of life.

Joseph “Joe” Greene bears dreams of poetic success. But he’s three years into his time in Cambridge, and has not defeated his writer’s block. He can’t write a thing and, really, he’s not sure he’s any of the poetry he’s ever written is all that great.

While in a coffee shop, he bumps into a girl who who, unbeknownst to him, will change his life. Her name is Esi, and, yep, she is a time traveler from the future. People from said future pay money to take advantage of wormholes in the timestream to go back and passively observe great moments in history–and Joe, who is about to create a set of poems that will be legendary, is the person they have come to see. Apparently, Joe is on course to marry Diana, the aspiring actress he’s desired from afar, who will become the subject of his many so-far-unwritten love sonnets. Fame and joy await them both–allegedly.

But Esi isn’t in the past because of Joe–his poetry is the emotional equivalent of one big shrug for her. Instead she’s looking for her mom, who’s on the verge of meeting with tragedy at that very time in that very same town and on that very same campus. It ruined Esi’s life, and she’d do anything to change her fate. She pushes Joe toward Diana, even making him over. However, unfortunately for both of them, the more Esi is around, the more Joe finds himself falling for Esi–he finds Diana deadly dull the more time they spend together. Unfortunately for Esi, she’s not supposed to have left her tour group behind–and she has no plans to camp out in the past indefinitely. 

That’s where fate weaves its spell, naturally. Can Esi stay in her own time? Well, you’ll see. The getting there is part of the charm, and Love and other Paradoxes definitely knows how to have fun with itself, whether it be poking at space in time or giving us a makeover montage.

A lot of that charm comes from the seemingly-schlubby Joe and the determined Esi. Both are fantastic and smart, and are wonderful to follow. The romance between them is a shade meh, but I enjoyed them enough as individuals to want them to be together.

The worldbuilding here is what’s amazing – the way they set up this time-travel touristry industry, and how it manages to make Esi’s existence as a person in the near future fairly more realistic. It’s a sprightly story, but it has weight as well as humor, making for a substantive feast.

In the end, Love and Other Paradoxes sings, making the reader smile – and making them think about how fate might work in their own life.