Your Life Has Been Delayed

by Michelle I. Mason

Past and present, friends and crushes collide in a YA debut about a girl who takes off on a flight and lands 25 years later.

Jenny Waters boards her flight in 1995, but when she lands, she and the other passengers are told they disappeared . . . 25 years ago. Everyone thought they were dead.

Now contending with her family and friends fast-forwarding decades, Jenny must quickly adjust to smartphones and social media while being the biggest story to hit the internet. She feels betrayed by her once-best friend and fights her attraction to a cute boy with an uncomfortable connection to her past. Meanwhile, there’s a growing group of conspiracy theorists determined to prove the whole situation is a hoax. Will Jenny figure out how to move forward, or will she always be stuck in the past?

Genres: Young Adult, Contemporary, Time Travel, Science Fiction, Romance, Fiction, Fantasy

374 pages, Hardcover

First published September 7, 2021

About the author

Michelle I. Mason is the author of Your Life Has Been Delayed and My Second Impression of You. Michelle spent ten years as a PR manager promoting everything from forklift rodeos to Hotel Olympics before deciding she’d rather focus on made-up stories. When she isn’t writing, she’s probably reading, watching too much TV, cross-stitching, baking amazing brownies, or playing the violin. Michelle lives in St. Louis with her husband, two kids, and matching dog and cat.

Reviews

[emma · Rating 3 out of 5]

So maybe I've never gotten on a flight and landed thirty years later, like this girl, but I have lost a year of my early twenties to a pandemic-related lockdown so it feels about the same.

Just kidding. Also get vaccinated.

This was just...whatever. It felt about one to two hundred pages too long. The romance icked me out so bad my shoulders were around my ears in a defensive cringe positioning for at least half of the aforementioned too-many pages. The characters were in a firm second place to the plotline.

I've only seen fifteen-second clips of the show Manifest, but here's what I got:
Like the show Manifest, this is about a flight that goes missing in the air, with minutes passing for the passengers and years passing for everyone else.

Also like the show Manifest, it was not my cup of tea.

Bottom line: Too much pseudo science in my YA contemporary!

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tbr review

uh, you're telling me, title!

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challenging myself to read as many review copies as possible this month because i'm addicted to projects!

ARC 1: spaceman of bohemia
ARC 2: in search of us
ARC 3: aerialists
ARC 4: the sound of drowning
ARC 5: unleaving
ARC 6: the other side of luck
ARC 7: romanov
ARC 8: the storm keeper's island
ARC 9: gut check
ARC 10: when force meets fate
ARC 11: sisters in hate
ARC 12: before i disappear
ARC 13: big time
ARC 14: stolen science
ARC 15: have a little faith in me
ARC 16: invitation to a bonfire
ARC 17: the splendor
ARC 18: how to be luminous
ARC 19: the little women cookbook
ARC 20: while we were dating
ARC 21: the lost girls
ARC 22: wait for it
ARC 23: your life has been delayed

[Namera [The Literary Invertebrate] · Rating 2 out of 5]

⤅ The way this fascinating premise has been DESTROYED and turned into an angsty, plot-less romantic soap opera is practically criminal.

So, the heroine - 17-year-old Jenny Waters - goes missing in 1995, while flying on a plane between New York and St Louis. (Apparently that's in Missouri, which is one of those states that feels like it's been made up. The fact that the author gives zero place description doesn't help). When she touches down, she discovers that her three-hour flight been 25 years, and it's now 2020. Her parents are old, her 12-year-old brother Bradley is now in his 30s, and half her grandparents dead. Oh, and her best friend has married her boyfriend and birthed the worryingly attractive Dylan.

Sounds amazing, right? But unfortunately, we get treated to a slew of issues, including:

❌ A really unlikeable heroine. Jenny is shallow AF, and we quickly discover that she develops prejudices against people based on what they look like. For instance, when she first meets her seatmate Art, his pockmarked face immediately puts her off him, and later she thinks that he could never be a romantic prospect for her because of the way he looks (especially compared to perfect blond Dylan). And when she sees her brother's wife Kelly for the first time, you know what Jenny's reflexive response is? 'You're black?!' Yes, that's literally her response. What the actual hell? She disappeared in 1995, not 1955! Black people being with white people surely doesn't warrant that level of shock? I mean, that was before I was born, so feel free to correct me if I'm wrong.

❌ A 'romance' which is, again, shallow AF. I don't actually care that it's with the son of the man who was Jenny's boyfriend when she disappeared, because they never even kissed. But I do care that it feels like the only reason Jenny even likes Dylan is because he looks recognisable to her (i.e. like his dad Steve) and because he's vaguely nice to her. There's absolutely no stronger basis to it than that. And later on you discover that he knows some things about her which, frankly, makes the romance between them come across as a little bit creepy.

❌ At the end, a vague thriller-type plot has been stuffed in. It's boring, badly written, and appears so late in the book as to be irrelevant. The majority of the book deals with Jenny's dumb romance with Dylan, with small portions relating to patching things up with Angie.

I'm going to stop there, because I'd much rather go and review a book I actually enjoyed now. But this only gets 2 stars because I managed to finish it, and I'm still impressed at how a fabulous-sounding premise was so badly botched.

[Darla · Rating 5 out of 5]

Jenny Waters has just gone forward in time -- 25 years! She got on a plane in NYC in 1995 and landed in St. Louis in 2020. Talk about jet lag! This book has some sci-fi, some social media angst, a little romance, and a lot of heart. It was such a fun read. Cultural references abound for the 90's and up to the present. There are some apt comparisons to "Back In Time," one of my favorite movies, as well as plugs for the Hunger Games series. At one point in the midst of her learning curve with social media, Jenny compares it to Telephone on steroids. Well said, Jenny, well said.

Thank you to Bloomsbury YA and Edelweiss+ for a DRC in exchange for an honest review.

[Tucker Almengor]

this title reminds me of the "you've been stopped" vine
*******
sounds like An Absolutely Remarkable Thing

but hopefully better

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[Quill&Queer · Rating 5 out of 5]

Being a 90s kid, I thought that this story of a girl who gets on a plane and steps off 25 years later would be a fun romp, but I was caught off guard by how emotionally raw the story is, as Jenny tries to come to terms with the death of her grandparents, and the potential to lose her own parents years earlier than she ever expected.

Although this borders the sci-fi genre, this story feels more like a contemporary, with a side of romance. Jenny's fellow passengers offered her a safe space as they too, tried to deal with everything that had changed around them, losing family and partners to time.

Jenny's heartbreak felt very real, but not over her boyfriend Steve but her best friend, Angie, who is now in her 40s with two children Jenny's age. They cannot be in the same place every again and it was brutal to see Jenny looking for those glimpses of her friend in this much changed woman.

This was my most anticipated read this September and it did not let me down! I can't wait to see what Michelle does next, and this has got me really craving some books set fully in the 90s - this is all leading up to me digging out my many copies of Point Horror, I can feel it.

[Mid-Continent Public Library]

Jenny Waters has just gone forward in time -- 25 years! She got on a plane in NYC in 1995 and landed in St. Louis in 2020. Talk about jet lag! This book has some sci-fi, some social media angst, a little romance, and a lot of heart. It was such a fun read. Cultural references abound for the 90's and up to the present. There are some apt comparisons to "Back In Time," one of my favorite movies, as well as plugs for the Hunger Games series. At one point in the midst of her learning curve with social media, Jenny compares it to Telephone on steroids. Well said, Jenny, well said.
*Review by Darla from Red Bridge*

[Hannah · Rating 1 out of 5]

I received an ARC from Bloomsbury in exchange for an honest review. Spoiler-free thoughts can be read here: https://twincitiesgeek.com/2021/09/yo...

I was actually looking forward to this one, and I’m astounded at how disappointed I am at how the final product turned out. This is a mess of petty arguments, selfish reasoning, and sci-fi elements tacked on to try and detract from the meaningless drama. I know this is the author’s first book, but…wow. This could have done with more edits and more revisions.

THINGS I LIKED
•The support group scenes were easily the best and most well-written of the entire book. Everyone had different challenges to face, like getting married to their now-older fiancé or grieving for lost loved ones, and the group dynamic felt natural and a genuinely positive part of Jenny’s new life. I really wish the book had focused more on this, maybe even having Jenny connect more with other members outside of meetings, because it would have been far more interesting than Jenny’s relationship drama.
•Jenny’s niece and nephew were cute…what little we saw of them.
•The subplot about Walter wanting to go back to 1995 and thinking the plane would take him there was unintentionally hilarious. It was so melodramatic, I couldn’t not laugh at how outlandish it got.

THINGS THAT MADE ME GO “HUH?”
•Jenny’s family and friends keeping secrets from her got way out of hand. I understand wanting to ease her into things, but deliberately refusing to let her research or know Angie wrote a book about her was not okay. Angie asked for Jenny to be kept in the dark about it, so it really wasn’t about protecting Jenny at all, it was about Angie not being able to face the consequences of her actions and choosing to tiptoe around them until it blew up in her face. What kind of best friend does that?
•Jenny’s heartbreak over Steve felt a little forced? I could understand if she’d dated him for longer and they’d actually been exclusive, but it sounds like they were at the very beginning stages of a relationship, and her outrage at Angie “stealing” her boyfriend didn’t make much sense to me. Maybe I’m unable to get into the mind of a teenager, but it’s not like they did it with the intention of hurting her, and I think that’s what bothered me the most: Jenny was convinced the world was out to get her (and to be fair, it was at times), so everything she finds out was done to deliberately ruin her life.
•Jojo was way too salty about being named after Jenny. Her personality was made up of spite and her “turn around” at the end didn’t feel genuine after she was so bratty before.
•The casual racism in this book was so misplaced. Jenny can be surprised that her brother married a Black woman, but to say out loud, “You’re Black?” Why would you do that? What was the point? And I’m not saying Ashling Chan had a vaguely racist name, but she kind of had a vaguely racist name, and it didn’t help that she was a bully.
•Speaking of Ashling, why was she so hellbent on being awful to Jenny? She had no reason to dislike Jenny as much as she did and her sole purpose of being in the story was to be a huge bitch and screw with Jenny’s life. She was a literal Dhar Mann villain with no emotional depth and she made me rage every time I saw her name.
•Jenny just wasn’t that likable or relatable. She was just kind of there and happened to like writing and being nosey. I didn’t feel invested in her personal growth at all, and I’m not sure she even made that much progress by the end of the novel.
•Dylan was okay, but he and Jenny had no chemistry. At all. Their interactions felt more friendly than anything, and their romance felt underdeveloped and forced.
•WALTER BELIEVING PATROL COULD SEND HIM BACK TO 1995. WHY WAS THIS SO SILLY? WHAT WAS THE POINT? This ties back into wanting to see more of the support group, because his shift into a conspiracy theorist and his pitiful desperation had hardly any build-up. I’m still torn about whether or not I enjoyed this part, because while it did make me laugh, it wasn’t intended to do so.

NITPICK CORNER
•I don’t ever want to hear about bird sex ever again. It doesn’t have the humorous impact you think it does, Michelle I. Mason.
•There were so many needless descriptions and interruptions in the dialogue that propelled a lot of this into Telling, meaning Showing was pushed to the side in favor of overly explaining how someone was feeling (because I wouldn’t understand by body language, I needed my hand to be held the entire time). This needed at least one more round of edits for stuff like that, because as a result, the novel felt juvenile and messy.

I just don’t even know what else to say. This could have been poignant and sweet, but it was unfocused and annoying and a huge letdown. If you want more Manifest, just rewatch it and pretend this doesn’t exist.

[lily ✿ · Rating 3 out of 5]

[2.5 stars]

when i read the inside cover of this book, it struck me that it was remarkably similar to the concept for the show manifest: a group of people get on a plane, but at the end of their trip, they find that they’ve haven’t reached quite the destination they thought they would…instead, they’ve accidentally time-traveled 25 years into the future. (in this case, landing in 2020. luckily without the pandemic, because that truly would’ve been a travesty.) in the author’s notes at the end, though, i learned that she had the idea for this story before the announcement of the show, so i feel so sorry for her 😭

as for the book itself: we’ve got a fascinating concept explored. there are all sorts of repercussions to accidental time-travel. for one, the world has experienced countless events and upgraded in technology so as to become unrecognizable. not to mention every former family member and friend - they had to deal with the loss of their loved ones, and grieve over them after enough time had passed that they simply had to assume they were dead. some of their own loved ones died, others moved on in unexpected ways, and some coping mechanisms (i.e. publishing a book including all of their personal details) greatly affect the newcomers to the twenty-first century.

jenny finds herself catapulted into fame, as the youngest and most-watched member of the flight. mostly, she wants to resume life as normal, and for the most part she does: moves back in with her (significantly older) parents, goes back to high school, etc. her dream is to be a reporter, but that being said, she isn’t all that perceptive. it’s startlingly easy to keep secrets from her, and she makes incorrect assumptions several times throughout the book. she also acts sort of childish for her age, falling into big emotional breakdowns every time those secrets are revealed. the worst part of the story - spoiler alert ahead - is that her love interest is, get this, the son of her best friend and ex-boyfriend (who she had been dating before she disappeared.) absolutely wild. that being said, i didn’t hate the book, and it was an interesting idea to explore. what would you do if you found that your little brother was now older than you (and a father??)

[Linda Jackson · Rating 5 out of 5]

YOUR LIFE HAS BEEN DELAYED did not disappoint! It has a clever premise and a well-crafted plot. I LOVED it. I loved all the little surprises that Jenny had to face, and I loved hearing the stories of the people in the support group (a few others from the plane). So intriguing! I could totally put myself in their shoes and feel what it might be like to remember everything and everyone from just a week ago (or three hours, really) while they had all advanced by 25 years.

Thanks to NetGalley for the early read.

[Jamie (The Perpetual Page-Turner)]

This sounds exactly like the premise of the show Manifest -- which I loved for like 2 seasons and then it didn't appeal to me anymore because it got too convoluted. Regardless, I like the premise so excited for this one.

[Kinsey Breland .: avid_midnight_reader :. · Rating 4 out of 5]

My one complaint about Jenny was that she was slow about figuring things out about the people around her. That her best friend, Angie, was married to her high school boyfriend was probably the worst. I figured that out 6 pages before she did. Her brother really should have warned her about that one.

The fact that Jenny’s parents supposedly let people convince them to get rid of her clothes (and they took down the posters in her room), but they kept everything else the same seemed very strange to me. What was the point of getting rid of the clothes and nothing else? I didn’t understand the author’s choice with that.

I think Bradley really handled this whole thing poorly. Not telling Jenny before that Angie had married Steve, and removing all the photos from their wall at home so that she didn’t see how old their parents had gotten were bad moves. Letting her know about these things before being faced with them would have given her time to process the information before being thrown into the situation. Same thing with withholding the news channel from Jenny. They were probably worried about something similar to a culture shock with her facing all the information over the past 25 years that she missed (not to mention all the crazy conspiracies people were saying about the plane), but they can’t keep it from her forever and she was certainly going to hear about this stuff at school.

Something about PATROL’s sudden offer to help all the passengers from flight 237 get back to their own time sounded suspicious. I feel like there is something more there to why the doctors specifically noted the control tower as being where this supposed portal would appear. It sounded completely phony and clearly a set up.

[rach · Rating 3 out of 5]

the premise of this book seemed really interesting but honestly, i feel like the execution just made it fall short for me. some parts of the plot were focused on more than i would have liked to see and some of the things i found most compelling were saved towards the end and just overall rushed :((

[Liralen · Rating 2 out of 5]

In 1995, Jenny gets on a routine three-hour flight. When the flight lands 25 years later, she faces a new world, with family and friends aged beyond recognition and in life stages that Jenny isn't ready for.

I loved this conceptually, but the result focussed so much on the YA drama that pretty much every more interesting plot point got lost. Ultimately, the conflict in the book comes down to a couple of things: first, Jenny's best friend has grown up and married Jenny's boyfriend; second, they've had a son, and Jenny thinks he's suuuuuuper cute. And third, her parents (and friends) are hell-bent on keeping the truth of the modern world from Jenny...or at least hell-bent on not telling her themselves.

And I don't know. I didn't need the whole 'oh my god is it weird to date my ex's son???' plotline in particular (I don't think it's creepy, although contemporary news outlets would have a field day for sure, but Jenny's been in the new millennium for all of about...a day...when that romance starts), and I found it to distract and detract from the more important questions. Like...everyone seems to take it at face value that Jenny is still seventeen, and will be treated as such. There's never any discussion of 'are you legally 17, or are you legally 42?' (maturity level is definitely 17, but legally should be a question). Her poor parents have approximately three minutes of sobbing because the daughter who has been missing for twenty-five years is back, and then they slip right back into their parenting roles as though they haven't been doing other things since Jenny's brother grew up and moved out. Jenny meets her brother's wife, gasps, 'You're Black!' (44) and then basically (erm, unrelated to casual 1995 racism) never thinks about her brother and his family again. (After all, why try to figure out how you fit into your family 25 years later when you can go flirt with the son of your childhood best friend and ex-boyfriend?)

Nobody wants to tell Jenny about things like social media or Google or online news or 9/11 or the book her best friend wrote about her or how much the entire world knows (or can find out) about her, so they just...bury their heads in the sand and hope that Jenny will too. (All this means is that she finds out in Dramatic Ways that further detract from the more interesting plotlines.) The FBI 'investigation' amounts to a couple of officers asking 'did you see anything weird?' then glaring suspiciously at Jenny and taking some blood for testing—nobody so much as suggests that she should be given a thorough check-up by a doctor (or that therapy might be useful as she adjusts to life in the future). Jenny wants to go back to school in person because she's scared that she won't get into her top-choice college if she finishes school online, and nobody thinks to point out that all she's going to have to do is write an admissions essay about being a very well publicised time traveller and she's likely to get in anywhere she wants. (She's also scared that someone will 'scoop' her and write about the flight before she can write about it for her school paper. Again, nobody thinks to explain to her that she will be able to write about the experience for much bigger outlets at pretty much any point in time...pun entirely intended.)

And I just. Guys. I wanted to hear more about the woman whose fiancé has waited for her for twenty-five years, and who consequently still has a fiancé...but one who is suddenly (suddenly for her, anyway, if not for him) a quarter-century older than she is. I didn't need to know the why or how of the time-travelling, but when there's a group that decides that the way to send the passengers back to 1995 is to fly at a particular control tower, and the book was published days away from the 20th anniversary of 9/11 (granted, this seems like a publisher oversight, not an authorial oversight), I needed a great deal more than 'and they got in trouble for endangering lives!'. I wanted some wrestling with the acknowledgement that Jenny's parents are suddenly 25 years older, and those are years that she won't have with them. I wanted Jenny's Big Cathartic Moment to be about something other than a teenage boy.

So it's fine. I think I'm just too old for this—I wanted a much higher proportion of non-fluff than it wanted to give me.

[Anna Kimbro · Rating 2 out of 5]

I received an ARC in exchange for an honest review…and I’m going to be brutally honest - I wish I could get back the time I wasted on this book.

Listen, the idea of time mysteriously jumping to the future on a plane to find everyone you loved either dead or 25 years older is wild and creates a lot of room for plot…the problem is it’s already been done before. If you’ve even seen the trailer for Manifest, you’ve basically read this book. Sure, Manifest is a 5 year difference vs. the 25 years here, but that’s about the only difference.

Now, with such a premise, you’d expect this book to be sci-fi…right? At least a little? Nope. But I don’t know what other genre it falls into because…welll…nothing really happens except for some regular teen romance scenarios and mild high school drama.

It may be on me for having higher expectations based on the premise, but Jenny’s story was a whole lot of filler. I was also confused by the lingo of the high schoolers…it felt like they were all stuck in 1995, not just Jenny. Unfortunately, it pulled me even further out of the story hearing words that were out of date even when I was in high school in the early 2010s.

Let’s just say this wasn’t for me for a lot of reasons…and as a whole, it felt like a series of missed opportunities and plot holes.

[John Loyd · Rating 5 out of 5]

Jenny Waters visits her grandparents in New York, scoping out Columbia as a possible college. She flies home to St. Louis on August 2, 1995 and three hours later arrives in St. Louis on August 2, 2020. She and the other passengers and flight crew are thrown twenty-five years into their future. Along with all the changes in technology, they have been presumed dead, and their families that are still alive have all aged.

We follow Jenny as she returns for her senior year of high school, if her overprotective parents will let her go. Right from the outset Jenny gets the feeling that people are holding out on her. Not telling her things, they say to "protect" her. The fun in reading the story is learning these things as Jenny learns them. The only thing I'll say is that we focus on Jenny, there is no insight as to why this happened. There is a group that thinks it's a hoax and they have to prove to the world they aren't clones or aliens, just the same people who got on the flight twenty-five years ago.

This was fantastic. Loved Jenny. It might be high school drama, whether it is or not, 5 stars, it was enjoyable the whole way through. We could question what some of the characters did, but no cringe moments.

[Oyinda · Rating 4 out of 5]

Book 212 of 2021

3.5/3.75 🌟

Many thanks to Bloomsbury YA for my review copy of this book via Netgalley! This was such a compulsive read, I couldn't put it down and I just had to keep reading for most of the book.

I was scoping netgalley for books and came across the blurb and oh my! I knew I had to read it and gratefully, I don't regret my decision.

I am a conspiracy theorist at heart, so a book about a plane that disappears only to land 25 years in the future is right up my alley. This started out so well and on such a high. The premise was so intriguing too.

Jenny Waters is the MC, a 17 year old girl who went to visit her grandparents in New York in the summer of 95. She gets on a plane back and when they land, she along with the rest of the plane discovers that they're in 2020.

This is a YA book that's heavy on the YA. Against the backdrop of everything that's going on with the plane we still get to see Jenny be a teen, go to school, be petty and childish, and fall in love. There are so many culture shocks with Jenny experiences when she sees/discovers things like iPhones, flat screen TVs, social media, and the internet for the first time.

This book was so so funny. I couldn't stop laughing at some parts. The writing was so witty especially at the beginning when Jenny was learning about new things in 2020.

On the other hand as well, there's the serious aspect to the plane appearing 25 years later. The FBI is involved, the life everyone left isn't what they met, lots of their family and friends are dead, there are politicians and conspiracy theorists trying to find out what exactly happened. How is this possible? I, too, was invested in the science of it all - how did it happen? What's the explanation?

I wish we had gotten more science during the course of the book. At a certain mark the book just delved into YA contemporary, with the high school, teen rivalry, and the romance. Jenny was very childish if I'm being honest. She kept getting mad and acting out over the tiniest things and things that aren't even justifiable to be mad at.

I had a lot of questions at the end of this book. The main goal for picking up this book - the airplane disappearance -i wasn't satisfied by how the author closed that out. Lots of things were left in the air but we also got closure to a lot of the plot points so I'm thankful for that.

This was such a fun read and I would definitely recommend it!

[Natalie · Rating 5 out of 5]

Okay, this book was seriously good. I really loved it! It’s kind of a YA contemporary/sci fi mashup, and it was really well done. Also, apparently this is the author’s first book?? I am very impressed by that. The writing was solid, the characters (both main and supporting) were likable, and the story was definitely unique.

I really loved Jenny as a character. She was really likable and an all around “good kid” but didn’t come off as a goody-goody. I liked her drive to be a good, honest reporter and her desire to find the truth.

The author captured the 90s atmosphere perfectly. The way that Jenny discovers how much the world has changed including everything from cell phones to social media to The Hunger Games was really well done. I loved her observations about the world around her and her thoughts about the world she left behind.

The romance was a bit odd at first, but once I got over the initial oddness, I really liked it. He was sweet and charming. It definitely wasn’t instalove, and I liked that he was always there for her and never made her feel “different” when she didn’t understand something about the world around her.

This had some funny and amusing moments, but was also surprisingly introspective and philosophical as well. I definitely wasn’t expecting this to be as deep as it was. It had me thinking and I like books that make me think.

Overall, I really enjoyed this one. I can’t wait to read Mason’s next book this fall.

[Lea Pearl · Rating 4 out of 5]

Your Life Has Been Delayed is a cute YA Contemporary novel with a time travel twist. That premise is super intriguing!

The story pacing is a bit slow, but I found it picked up after a few certain plot points got ironed out and weren't consistently repeated, glazed over, or withheld because of protecting Jenny.
There is just a hint of romance which was a nice touch, but not really necessary.
With the amount of characters in the book, I found them all fairly well fleshed out (all the important details touched on), but I really would've loved to have gotten more depth into the lives of Jenny's friends and family.

An overall enjoyable read that's very heavy on the YA side as Jenny navigates her teenage life in a new time period with all the ups and downs.


Thank you to Bloomsbury YA for the ARC to read and honestly review.

[B · Rating 1 out of 5]

There wasn’t really anything enjoyable about this except the plot. I didn’t expect to get an answer, so I’m okay with that, but Jenny was so annoying and self-righteous. I get it, it’s scary and confusing and a whole bunch of other shit, but her thoughts were just the worst and I couldn’t stand being in her head.

Also, I don’t care if it was supposed to be sweet, her whole romance with Dylan was creepy AF and it never should have happened. There’s something extremely disturbing about dating your former boyfriend’s son, no matter how many years have passed.

[Michelle’s Library · Rating 4 out of 5]

3.5 I liked that this was a more contemporary approach to Manifest but Jenny did not seem like a 17 year old and more like a 13 year old which was a little frustrating. It was interesting to think about how much technology and everything has changed since 1995 and I liked that aspect a lot.

[kim · Rating 3 out of 5]

3.5 ⭐️ rounded

spoilers will be below because i'm kinda ~ranting~

This book has a really intriguing premise and I love how it got straight to the time travel part. It helped add to how quickly and suddenly the years went by to the future. I’ll be honest in saying that although this book has flaws I will rant about in a second, I did get through it quickly because I was so curious.

Jenny is an unlikeable MC. Look, I completely understand and sympathize with her drastic life change and her needing to adjust, but damn she was so immature and petty with everything. I get it, she’s a teen in a new century, but you don’t have to be rude and judgemental about the people around you. Sure, it was completely uncalled for them to keep big secrets from Jenny that she would’ve inevitably found out about, which was shitty of them. (But seriously, how did she not find out about her friend's book earlier?)

Jenny did improve throughout the book, though, so good for her. Or maybe I just got used to her. I personally didn’t like the romance with her “ex”’s son because it just felt so weird? Ignoring the fact that they had no chemistry, Dylan was a great guy; probably one of the best side characters in this book. I love a cute book nerd. Everyone else in her new high school kinda sucked and very cringey. I did like Jenny’s support group and wished we got more of them.

I hated that the events of Flight 237 were more of a sub-plot. It would’ve been cooler to get Jenny and the other passengers trying to solve what happened in the world of conspiracies and social media. (And getting to know the lives of the other passengers before and after!) If there had to be a love story, I would’ve made it with Art or at least another passenger on the plane. It would’ve been cute for them to adapt to the modern world together, or even as a group. Speaking of, I wish this book had more of an explanation on the freaking plane time-travelling.

Half-point for the fact I couldn’t put this book down.

[Paula Phillips · Rating 4 out of 5]

This YA read's story had me intrigued as I love time travel novels. For those who have watched the TV show Manifest, then you will get the gist of this book as it was very similar in storylines without the characters getting weird powers like in the TV show and unlike the TV show which is 5 years gap - this book is 25 years. The book started with 17-year-old Jenny heading to New York to check out Columbia and then the next thing she knows, her plane is landing but it is now 2020 and when she left for her three hours ago it was the year 1995. Realistically she should be in her late 40's but of course, she is still her 17-year-old self, and she and the rest of the flight who haven't aged now have to find themselves and reintegrate into the present. Jenny's life has changed drastically as she has had her family die, her younger brother is now in his late 30's and married with two children and to make matters worse her best friend and her boyfriend at the time have both moved on with their lives and created new ones. Can Jenny find her way back into this world, especially when even technology has changed drastically and her whole career choice in newspapers is seen as dead since the world is all about online journalism? This book did make me think about what it would be like if we were suddenly catapulted into the future? Would we be able to pick it up? The only thing I wasn't keen on in this story was that the character of Jenny seemed younger than her 17-year-old self and her parents babied her quite a bit which made her a naive character. In parts, when we saw glimpses of her old self and present, it did make me wonder if Jenny had or was on the Autism/Aspergers spectrum. If she did, then the protectiveness and naivety would make sense for the story. If not, then JFC gives Jenny some space and let her grow up and make her own decisions people. Your Life has been delayed by Michelle I Mason is the perfect read for those who enjoyed Manifest and Jay Asher's The Future of Us.

[Shannon Miz · Rating 5 out of 5]

You can find the full review and all the fancy and/or randomness that accompanies it at It Starts at Midnight

Just in time for Manifest's 828 Day Resurrection, we have a lovely YA offering in the same vein. And it did not disappoint! Your Life Has Been Delayed follows mid-90s kid Jenny, who is on her way home from visiting her grandparents in New York. Only, whoopsie, her plane takes a little detour and winds up in 2020. You can imagine how jarring that would be, on many levels!

Jenny has to try to navigate a lot here. Not only is her personal life a mess, but she has to deal with authorities who flat out do not believe that her plane is from 1995. Add to it, the world has changed a lot since then, and Jenny's never even seen a cell phone, let alone used one. My point is, it's a lot. The initial changes she encounters are predictable, I suppose. Her baby brother is now decades older than her, with a wife and kids of his own. Her parents are now basically elderly, and all but one of her grandparents are dead. And that is just the tip of the iceberg!

It's a really wholesome and heart warming story about Jenny finding her identity after hers has kind of been stripped away by time. She's forced to do all this while navigating a new world, and vastly different relationships with the loved ones she left behind. And for Jenny, she's seen these people only days ago, while for them it has been twenty-five years. I really loved watching Jenny take back control over her life, even as so many seem dead set on making it hard.

Bottom Line: It's fascinating, thought-provoking, and just a genuinely uplifting story about finding the power to overcome even the most extreme circumstances.

[Stacey Kade]

Really liked this one!

[Brittany Zimmerman · Rating 5 out of 5]

Look, to be totally honest, I still wouldn't have wanted to be on this flight, but this book was an easy five stars for me. The character development, the plot line and development, the romance, the familial relationships, the growth- there is just so much good within in this book to even describe it all in detail one by one, so I'll do my best to summarize my favorite points. Jenny was such a complex, yet simplistic character and I think that's why I loved her so much. Her need and desire to know information and to want to write reminded me a lot of myself. Her curiosity, but need to want to stay in the simpler times of 1995 are very relatable. I think Michelle did such a great job with the structure and how she handled such difficult circumstances from Jenny's return. I think the conflict and conflict resolution was so well done, whether it was Jenny's conflict/differences with her family, her friends that were now grown, and the students when she went back to school. Her conflict within herself was flawlessly executed and I can't get over how good this was! What a phenomenal concept and done perfectly!

Now, to the meat and bones. Everyone who's read my blog for any period of time knows that I don't do spoilers and that won't change. But, holy wow- the romance in this book is so sweet! It's also so accurate to how their actions (I personally think) would've happened, complete with the awkwardness, the anger and the apologies. I loved everything about it. Dylan was such a great guy! I couldn't get over his dynamic and his ability to see past what had happened to Jenny and just see her for who she was. This is one of my favorite contemporary couples I've read in a long while.

The atmosphere was perfect, her research and knowledge of ATC/ boarding/ flying was on point and this was such a fun read! It was easy to give it five stars. I'd absolutely read this book again. Honestly, I can't wait to read it again just to see Jenny and Dylan!

[Andrea · Rating 2 out of 5]

The premise of this book was certainly interesting. It reminded me completely of the Netflix show, Manifest. It was so similar that I wondered throughout who copied who - it was so similar that I wouldn't be surprised if there was a lawsuit.

Although it was advertised as YA, the main character, Jenny sounded and thought a lot like a middle schooler instead. Her thinking seemed very shallow and simple. This isn't a bad thing per se, but it's definitely not what I expected.

I think what bothered me the most was the way she reacted to the fact that she came back from the airplane to a world that had seemingly moved 25 years forward. If that happened to me, I think realistically it wouldn't be so easy to sneak out. Although the story mentioned many news headlines and shocked reactions from everyone, as the reader, I didn't necessarily feel these feelings through the storytelling of Jenny.

The cover art is cute but isn't my favourite because of the cartoon-likeness of Jenny and doesn't portray her as what she is described as inside the book. The art makes it feel even more like a middle grade read.

Overall, the premise was interesting and if you're not expecting a deep read, you'll probably still enjoy this!

[flori rose · Rating 5 out of 5]

this was really good! the mc was kinda childish at some points but it was understandable considering her entire life had been uprooted and she had to re-learn everything. overall i enjoyed it.

[Eve]

hmmm sounds like the tv show manifest...🤔

[Heather · Rating 1 out of 5]

I love the concept of time travel and I initially loved the premise of this book: that a 90s teenager (I was one of those!) boards a plane, and debarks only to find 25 years have passed in what seemed like only three hours for her.

Well, great concept, but the execution, for me, missed the mark.

The book starts off fantastically. I really, really felt for the main character. I was in the lobby at a doctor's office for an appointment and crying over this book. I thought I was going to love it, add it to a list of favorites. Her pain and confusion of seeing her little brother is now a grown man, and finding out her grandparents have almost all passed away, was heart wrenching and real. But then. Then the reek of privilege hit. And it pretty much ruined this book for me.

Main character Jenny goes to her older-little-brother's house and meets his wife, and the first thing that pops out of her mouth is, "You're black!" Come on. Even in 1995 that was not acceptable. She has the decency to at least be embarrassed by her outburst, but she never makes up for it, because the brother, his Black wife, and their kids are out of the story after that point.

I guess I was hoping for some science fiction in this book, but it seems like it would be more appropriately shelved as "Christian fiction." Because instead of scientists even once asking to study the passengers on the time-traveling flight, instead of any real theories about how this could have happened, there's a lot of talk about "God works in mysterious ways" and "it was God's plan."

And, okay. Fine. The main character is a Christian. Her parents are missionaries. I don't care. But the main character spends actual time in this book defending the rampant sexism found in her religion, including that her father measures the lengths of her skirts and that wearing white is a major no-no. There is a whole lot of slut-shaming in this book, though the main character has one kiss in totality.

Look, I grew up in a very similar household to this character's, one in which men rule, women are subservient, and you go to church thrice a week to be told how awful you are, especially if you are female. And I was absolutely abused and traumatized by it. Scarred for life by a man (my father) not allowing me to wear white. (Because, if you haven't heard of this, a light colored fabric makes it possible for other people to detect that you're wearing a bra under your white shirt, or panties under your white skirt. Gasp. Because having genitals which you cover with underwear makes men think about your genitals, and that makes YOU the one in the wrong.) As if it is ANY man's business to tell a girl or woman what to wear. As if it's okay for a man, father or not, to make an innocent little girl feel like a whore when she hasn't done anything wrong. I recall very vividly finding out that being born a girl was a crime and that I was going to be demeaned and judged for it for the rest of my life, punished for things I had never done. Twenty-five years later I can still remember the first time I dared to attempt to wear a white skirt to church, how I was not allowed to leave the house until I changed my clothes. I was a child. This girl is a child. And yet she thinks this is all okay and normal, and defends it!

There's a lot of other religious material in this book, but that point was the lowest. The rest is about maintaining "virginity" until marriage - lots more slut-shaming - and the main character presumes her former best friend is "mocking [her] faith" at one point. Christianity is a pervasive theme throughout the book that very seriously took away from my enjoyment of it.

Most of this book is about Jenny learning about the world around her and the technology today. And it was not well-done. It was actually pretty fucking offensive. It starts off with the basics. Of course she learns about streaming services, flat screens, laptops, and cell phones. Which is fine for a few chapters, but after comprising most of the book, it becomes tedious.

Also, a huge deal is made of her parents first hiding the "mysterious of the 21st century" from her, but then trying to help her cope with major world events by watching some documentaries dedicated to the decades, which cover world events and pop culture. Well, the author dodges the issue of school shootings by having the main character's mother say, yes, you have to go through a metal detector at school now, but we won't discuss why. (I'll refrain from making an assumption about the author's political affiliation, but...well. Hm. What reason could there be that we can't talk about guns in this book?) The only major world event that is discussed at all is 9/11. Which, yes, was a huge ordeal...but also 20 years ago. It happened shortly after the main character's disappearance. And, yes, her grandparents were New Yorkers. But you know what else has happened in the United States in the last 25 years? Marriage equality!!! A Black president!!!

The book does not make a single mention of the amazing progress that's been made in the last two decades. No mention whatsoever that we had a Black president, though the main character reacted so strongly to the fact that her brother married a Black woman. He could have even married a man and given the author a chance to really show how the country has changed since 1995. I feel like a religious agenda was the real focus here. And I still might have read a piece of Christian fiction with the subject of time travel at its core, except for the repeated slut-shaming of a girl for wearing white, wearing a skirt that was too short, and kissing her boyfriend in public. Once. She kissed him once. And it was world news, with literally news organizations all over the world slut-shaming her. In addition to the boys and girls at school slut-shaming her. In addition to her slut-shaming herself.

I really loved the concept behind this book, but it just did not live up to my expectations. Worse than that, it offended me. There was a lot of teen drama that I half-enjoyed, half-felt was too far-fetched to believe. I thought the ending was pretty clever, how at long last the subject of time travel came up in the last three chapters of the book. I liked some of the characters and I liked the dynamics between them, how their relationships were so very complicated because of what happened to Jenny on that plane. But the entire storyline was overshadowed by bigotry. Every time I started really enjoying the book, somebody would slut-shame the main character again. It was (other than the bigoted bits) well-written and I liked the plot and characters and thought the ending was pretty perfect. However, I am also horrified by some of the content. I forgot to mention that the villainess, the "mean girl" at school, is Asian. The only other non-white character besides Jenny's sister-in-law, and she's the one clear "bad guy." Not okay. I feel like the author just really, really, REALLY needs to get out of her bubble and get educated.

[Camille · Rating 5 out of 5]

A huge thank you to Michelle I. Mason for this wonderful giveaway book. I love the story so much. This is the first time i’ve read about time travel and it was so good. I love this book, I can’t wait to read your next works.

This book is about Jenny who travel back home to St. Louis in 1995 but disappeared for 25 years. Jenny and the other passengers are now in the present and all of them are confused especially Jenny. When they came back they all discovered what really happened to them.

When she finally met her brother she can’t believe it, because when she left, her brother was only 12 years old but now, he’s married and has 2 children. After she discovered everything in the past 25 years it was too much for her. Then she met her best friend Angie, it was a disaster because Angie has a husband and children. And her husband was Jenny’s boyfriend. Jenny was so sad because she missed a lot of things. Going to school, going to prom and go to college with her best friend. She missed them all, that’s what makes her feel sad and hurt. After months, life was so hard for Jenny. The reporters didn’t leave her alone, posting about her life and love life. Everything is a mess now.

Kira is so cute, she’s only 4 years old and daughter of Bradley. Kira always follows Jenny wherever she goes. Dylan is sweet and easy to talked to. He’s also Steve and Angie’s son. Dylan was so nice too, he helps Jenny learn about the modern life like how to use a phone, laptop, and social media.

When Walter says they can go back to 1995 Jenny still choose to live in the present and not to go back because going back to 1995 she knows that she’s going to lose them again anyway. At the end of the book, even they didn’t discover anything that happened to them they still choose to live their lives in the present, even they lose a lot of people in their lives.