Sourcebooks Fire
November 3, 2015
336 pages
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They exist in two different centuries, but their love defies time
Cassandra craves drama and adventure, so the last thing she wants is to spend her summer marooned with her mother and stepfather in a snooty Massachusetts shore town. But when a dreamy stranger shows up on their private beach claiming it's his own—and that the year is 1925—she is swept into a mystery a hundred years in the making.
As she searches for answers in the present, Cassandra discovers a truth that puts their growing love—and Lawrence's life—into jeopardy. Desperate to save him, Cassandra must find a way to change history…or risk losing Lawrence forever.
Until We Meet again is a like a time travel book that manages to avoid so many (if not all) of the things that can hang up time travel books. With so much of the characters interaction on the private beach like it is, we don't have to waste time with them marveling over how different the other's time is, or running into some kind of trouble.
Instead, we get to focus on the Cassandra and Lawrence. There are definitely differences because of their different time periods: the phrasing and slang they use, fashion choices, gender expectations. With it being so much just the two of them, isolated, though, it becomes more about two individuals getting to know each other and spend time together. Regardless of what year they call home.
In the beginning, I wasn't sure how I felt about Cassandra's character. She is hanging around her parents rented beach house, all day, every day, because she has nothing else she really wants to do. There are plenty of things she thinks she could be doing, 'if only.' (If only they had stayed home, she could be . . . If only her friend wasn't away for an internship, they would have . . . etc, etc) At the same time, it was hard to fault her for her lack of direction because of how aware of it she was. In some ways, she reminded me of Summer from Romancing the Dark in the City of Light.
While it feels like Cassandra is more the main character (than Lawrence), I liked his character and the peek we get into his world. His dialogue and it's 1920's-ness was such fun. He fit with the year in which he lived but his struggles, the dilemmas he was facing and the pressure he was under, translated very well into the modern day.
The progression of the relationship between Cassandra and Lawrence, the possible dangers of their interacting across the decades, how the secret of each other impacts their lives - and the danger they have to find a way to thwart, make for a great read. Then there is the ending that might just make you cry (it did me).
Other Books You May Also Enjoy: The Future of Us by Jay Asher and Carolyn Mackler and Romancing the Dark in the City of Light by Ann Jacobus
digital review copy received, from publisher, via NetGalley
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