欧宝娱乐

Replay is a book that had been lingering on my to-read stack for well-nigh three years before I finally got up the gumption to actually crack the cover. Once again I find myself a victim of the too-many-books-too-little-time syndrome which seems to plague all of us various Goodreaders and am kicking myself for waiting so long before reading this eminently enjoyable time travel romp.

I think that one of the reasons I avoided reading this for so long is that it is saddled under the unfortunate umbrella of time travel fiction. Often this means a lot of obtuse descriptions of quantum mechanics and the paradoxes of accidentally meeting yourself in the past; Time Travel 101, if you will. Fortunately, Grimwood plays upon the well-worn theme with a unique twist.

Rather than jumping in a machine and galivanting into the future to romp with the Eloi, Grimwood has his hero Jeff die one chill October evening in 1988. Yet, instead of pearly gates and St. Peter, Jeff awakens to find himself in his college dorm in 1963 with full knowledge of the future to come, from the fall of Saigon to the horse that will win the Kentucky Derby. With this premise Grimwood has tapped into one of the most fundamental wishes of humankind: the desire to do things differently now that you know how it will play out.

It's thrilling to watch as Jeff relives his life, testing out various professions or challenges, finally having the children that he longed for in his first life, attempting to stop the Kennedy Assassination, investing in Apple when Jobs and Wozniak were still tinkering in their garage, reveling in the reckless hedonism of early 60s Paris. As he plays through each iteration, though, Jeff realizes what a lonely existence he lives as the only one who seems to realize that everything that happens has already happened before, until he sees a film that he had never heard of before and stumbles across a woman who is also trapped in a historic loop.

This was an incredibly fun read that I never wanted to put down. Jeff isn't perfect, which makes him more fun. He wastes several of his lives and inadvertantly ends up with much blood on his hands when he tries to alter the course of history, but it is this that makes him relatable. He may be forewarned, but that does not always equate to being forearmed and I would often find myself agreeing with several well-intentioned decisions he makes that inevitably blow up in his face. From a fantastic premise through a great follow-through, Ken Grimwood has crafted a story that will stand the test of time, even if it's on repeat.