Faye, Faraway

 Book 37 of my 2025 Reading Challenge

read from April 2 - 12

Faye, Faraway by Helen Fisher

published 2021

Summary (via the book jacket)

Every night, as Faye puts her daughters to bed, she thinks of her own mother, Jeanie, who died when Faye was eight. The pain of that loss has never left her, and that's why she wants her own girls to know how very much they are loved by her - and always will be, whatever happens.

Then one day, Faye gets her heart's desire when she travels back in time and is reunited not just with her mother but with her own younger self, the little girl she can scarcely remember.

Jeanie doesn't recognize grown-up Faye as her daughter, even though there is something eerily familiar about her. But the two women become close friends and share all kinds of secrets - except for the biggest secret of all, the secret of who Faye really is. Faye worries that telling the truth may prevent her from being able to return to the present day, to her dear husband and beloved daughters. Eventually she'll have to choose between those she loved in the past and those she loves in the here and now, and that knowledge presents her with an impossible choice.

If only she didn't have to make it...

My Opinion

3 stars

I checked this out from the library after seeing it in Bookpage.  Although 10 days passed from when I started to when I finished, that isn't a true representation of the reading.  I probably read it in 2-3 sittings; I read a lot the first day, lost my mind and wasn't reading anything for about a week, and then finished it in a day or two.

I love the concept of time travel and actually think about it a lot.  This book had a really interesting concept.  It stayed in reality more than I usually see for this type of book but trying to have explanations for everything also made it a bit clunky.

I like that it started right away and I was absorbed while reading.  However, it never quite made the jump from "good" to "great" for me and I didn't understand the looping of the ending and how a very big thing that happened in her childhood seemed to cause the time travel yet apparently she time travelled beforehand to make the big thing happen.

So this book felt a bit ambitious but I would read the author again and would love to see her take another pass at this idea.