Time Travel for Beginners (Jaclyn Moriarty, Ultimo)
If someone offered you the chance to travel into the past, would you believe them? Jaclyn Moriarty’s latest novel, Time Travel for Beginners, centres on a mysterious Sydney agency that claims to do exactly that.
Operating from an unassuming shopfront, the Time Travel Agency draws together 3 people with very different reasons for walking through its doors. For Anna, it offers a new job. For Teddy, it presents an opportunity to revisit pivotal moments from his past and make sense of his unravelling marriage. Meanwhile, Jade is one of many sceptics convinced the agency is a scam, exploiting vulnerable people by selling false hope.
Moriarty tells the story through these alternating perspectives, giving each character a distinctive voice and narrative style. Teddy’s chapters frequently incorporate emails and humorous text-message threads with his 2 friends. Meanwhile, Jade’s perspective is presented through journal entries and creative writing prompts, a device that gradually exposes the emotional truths beneath her scepticism. Anna’s chapters offer the deepest insight into the agency as she learns to navigate its mysterious technology and enigmatic founder, Dr Katya Nastevski, and her 3 eccentric co-workers, Paisley, Joon and Roberto, whose quirks and camaraderie make them particularly enjoyable additions to the cast.
The premise is sure to invite comparisons with Toshikazu Kawaguchi’s “Before the Coffee Gets Cold” series, particularly as Moriarty establishes a similar rule: revisiting the past cannot alter the present. While there is healing and hope, this is not quite the cosy, whimsical time-travel tale readers may be expecting. That said, Moriarty has plenty of fun with the concept, particularly through Anna’s literary-themed time-travel tours and the glimpses of other journeys undertaken through the agency. Through its fantastical premise, the story explores grief, regret and family relationships, while also examining the friendship dynamics, bullying and social pressures faced by teenagers through the experiences of Anna’s daughter, Nicola.
Moriarty’s writing is warm, assured and often quietly funny. While some dialogue occasionally feels slightly more functional than natural, the strength of the characterisation keeps the pages turning.
At its core, Time Travel for Beginners is a moving story about families, both the ones we are born into and the ones we create for ourselves, and particularly the enduring bond between sisters. The novel’s speculative elements may provide the hook, but the emotional journeys of its characters leave the strongest impression.
For readers who enjoyed Holly Gramazio’s The Husbands and Matt Haig’s The Midnight Library.
Books+Publishing reviewer: Jess Lomas is the reviews editor at Books+Publishing. Books+Publishing is Australia’s number-one source of pre-publication book reviews.
Books+Publishing pre-publication reviews are supported by the Copyright Agency Cultural Fund.
Category: Friday Unlocked reviews Reviews
