Oona Out of Order
- by Margarita Montimore
- Novel
- Mainstream
- Adults
- Definite Time Travel
- English
- Oona Out of Order by Margarita Montimore (Flatiron Books, February 2020).
On Oona Lockhart’s 19th birthday, her mind leaps into her 51-year-old body where she learns that she’s fated to leap into a random year on every coming birthday, living each year once in a normal manner except for her discontinous consciousness.
—Michael Main
Do I ever find any kind of stability? Or do I live life year after year like some kind of existential hobo?
Tags
(7)
- Time Periods
- Circa AD 1970 to 1999: dates from 1982 to 1999
- Circa AD 2000 to 2099: dates from 2003 to 2017
- Timeline Models
- Single Consistent Timeline: “You’re not going to stop any wars or stave off any big tragedies. You’re not Sarah Connor.” Oona’s lack of curiosity about even trying to change things makes it difficult to determine what would have happened had she tried. But as written, there are no changes to the timeline, so it could well be a single static timeline.
- Themes
- Free Will, Fate, and Determinism: “Even though I’ve never been about to change my fate, I’ll always wonder if it’s possible. If I’ve already done it without seeing evidence of it yet.
- Get Rich Quick through Time Travel: mostly offstage stock market and sports betting
- Meeting or Viewing Ancestors or Descendants: Oona meets her child before she’s given birth, and she also meets her mother at various points, including times when Oona is older than Mom.
- Wisdom or Consolation to Your Younger Self: letters at the start of most years
Variants
(3)
- Oona Out of Order by Margarita Montimore (Flatiron Books, February 2020).
- alternative title.
The Rearranged Life of Oona Lockhart by Margarita Montimore (Gollancz, February 2020). - audio reading.
Oona Out of Order by Margarita Montimore (MacMillan Audio, March 2020).
Translations
(1)
- Polish.
Oona kontra życie by Margarita Montimore (Słowne, June 2021).