Your Life Has Been Delayed Review

Your Life Has Been Delayed

By Michelle I. Mason

--- WARNING : THIS REVIEW CONTAINS SPOILERS --

I loved this book! It was so good and had me on the edge of my seat the entire time! I had to know what was going to happen next with Jenny’s complicated life and each page kept me flipping to the next one. The characters were so real and the concept was amazing !

The concept of this book was absolutely amazing. There’s a lot of time travel books out there. A lot. In fact, I’ve even worked on a time travel story (it’s kind of a mess right now, not gonna lie). However, many stories in the time travel genre are focused on how the time travel happened and the adventure of time travelling itself. This story doesn’t stick to that convention. By the end of the story, you have a probable guess at how the time travel happened but you still don’t know for sure. Instead of focusing most on how the time travel happened, Mason focuses instead on how it affected those who time travelled.

The complicated relationships that Jenny finds herself in after arriving 25 years in the future are so fascinating. Everyone who she knew was older than she remembered them and that leads to some difficult challenges. I loved seeing Jenny’s interactions with her brother, Bradley, and seeing how their relationship developed throughout the story. It was sweet to see how much her brother cared for her even though he didn’t exactly know how to show it. I would have liked Bradley and Jenny’s relationship to have been shown a bit more but the way that Brad describes it to Jenny offers a good excuse to readers as to why he isn’t around in the story as much.

Jenny’s relationship with Angie was also a fantastic part of the story. It’s so complicated but so so good too. Angie didn’t mean to cause Jenny all the trouble that she’s caused but she is constantly a reason that Jenny is struggling to adjust. It only feels right that her son is the main reason that Jenny wants to stay at the end of the book, even though she has the possible opportunity to jump back to 1995 presented to her. Jenny’s relationship with Dylan is absolutely adorable. He’s there for her whenever she needs him to be. And his apology when Jenny finds out about his mom’s book ? Perfect. I also really liked seeing how Jenny’s feelings about liking him shifted throughout the story. It felt like a really legit reaction to the complications that her liking Dylan brought with them.

However, I do feel like Jenny’s relationship with Dylan’s twin, JoJo, could have used a little more to it. For most of the time, Jenny and JoJo have a very complicated and difficult relationship. It’s not until the end that JoJo apologizes for all the crap that she put Jenny through at school and at that point, Dylan kind of cuts JoJo off when it comes to Jenny’s attention. I would have liked to see more of JoJo’s side of this whole situation. While we have her reasoning now for why she treated Jenny the way she did, we still don’t see how she’s going to change that behavior or if she’s going to change. I’d love to learn more about what happens next with her.

Lastly, I really really appreciated that Jenny’s character is a Christian and that it plays a big role in her life and story. It was really refreshing to see that perspective because I feel like it isn’t shown as much in the mainstream YA genre. As a Christian myself, it made me super happy to see a character who has the same faith as I do. Though I haven’t jumped 25 years into the future, I have had struggles in difficult situations and questions about my faith – the way that Jenny had them in this story. It was great to see how she worked through with them and how her parents helped her along. I just really liked this aspect of Jenny’s character.

Over all, this book is a 10 out of 10 and I highly recommend reading it !