Genre 📚: YA Contemporary Fantasy, Romance
Tropes 💁♀️: Time travel, Shared dreams, Right person/Wrong time
Rep ✔️: Black main character, BIPOC and queer side characters
CW ⚠️: Car accident, loss of a loved one, grief, emotionally distant parent, racism, sexism
Rating ⭐️: 3/5
The romance: Zadie has been with her popular boyfriend for about a year, and she suspects he’s going to give her a promise ring on their anniversary. Turns out said boyfriend actually wants to break up with her, and a literal car crash ensues. After waking up in the hospital, Zadie realizes that her boyfriend Jason is in a coma, and no one knows about the breakup but her… and Jason’s annoying cousin Marcus. Then, the rewind: Zadie and Marcus fall into a series of shared dreams, where they’re able to view memories of Zadie and Jason’s relationship. Zadie is glad for the opportunity to figure out what went wrong — but she has no idea why Marcus is along for the ride.
It took a while for the story to get to the shared dreams, but once it did, it was a fun time. Zadie enjoyed watching her relationship play out, while poor Marcus cringed and very much wanted to run away. Honestly, I was cringing along with Marcus, because it was clear that Jason wasn’t the perfect, loving partner Zadie made him out to be. Even when Zadie witnessed this for herself, she couldn’t bring herself to believe that they weren’t meant to be together. The denial was STRONG. At a certain point, though, the red flags were too obvious to ignore, and she finally started rethinking what she wanted. The last 10% of the book was way too chaotic for me, but all in all, I was happy with Zadie’s arc.
**Much thanks to NetGalley and G.P. Putnam’s Sons Books for providing an ARC in exchange for an honest review. The Romance Rewind will be released on June 23, 2026.
Sara Bechtol 