Review Detail

In this contemporary YA, Samantha 'Sam' Kang doesn't understand her tight-laced mother. After a fight, a strange ride share ends up taking her back in time where she meets her mother as a teen. Sam ends up thinking she needs to make things right in 1995 by helping her mother win Homecoming queen. Her assumptions about her mother and even her beloved grandmother are put to the test in more ways than one.

What worked: BACK TO THE FUTURE collides in 1995. There are numerous 1990s references throughout this novel from the movie Clueless and even life before texting! Like actually going to a public library's archives! These bring to life the whole Back-to-the-future vibe in this novel. The future slams into the past with some hilarious results. Then there's a cute boy that Sam feels chemistry with. He has his own secrets.

I liked the idea of an Asian protagonist going back in time to help her younger version of her mother. There Sam finds that her mother is labeled a poseur and snob as she hangs with her wealthier white classmates. The big reveal though is she sees another side of the grandmother she adores and finds that maybe her mother had been right.

I do wonder though if Sam went back in time wouldn't there have been more of a ripple effect in the present time? There are a few hints of this, but I also wondered if there might have been more.

Sam is spunky and determined to make things right so she can return back to her time. I loved how she didn't back down from the bullies at her mother's high school. It would have been so easy to do that.

Charming, fun story where a teen goes back to 1995 to help her then-teen mother and finds not only herself but her mother in the process.