Maybe This Time by Cara Bastone

My rating: 5 of 5 stars

Finding true love is only a matter of time in this heartfelt and hilarious romantic comedy, starring Zoë Chao (The Afterparty), Noah Reid (Schitt’s Creek), and a full cast!

Romance can be a little complicated when you get sucked into a wormhole. Just ask high school English teacher June Flint. One little solar flare happens and suddenly you find yourself 85 years in the future. Eighty-five years from your dream job. Your ailing mother whose only companion in this world is you. Your favorite stuffed-crust pizza from DeLucia’s on Sunday nights.

But when June’s cell phone inexplicably picks up a signal, she’s able to call back to the present—more specifically, four weeks before she accidentally time traveled. Problem is, the phone can only call one number: her work nemesis, gym teacher Mikey Shannon.

Now future June must help Mikey befriend present-day June to keep her from disappearing. But present-day June doesn’t even want to be in the same room as Mikey, let alone become besties. And Mikey isn’t exactly…talkie. Yet he’s spending hours a day with future June on the phone, and even more time trying to befriend present-day June. Volunteering with June at school, check. Facing his fear of roller coasters to make June smile, check. Adopting a puppy and letting her name it. Check.

But what does succeeding in the present mean for future June, and for the serious feelings she and Mikey are starting to catch for one another? Stopping time travel is one thing—but can they stop themselves from falling in love?

Maybe This Time

Slightly paranormal romance with full cast narration!

The following ratings are out of 5:
Romance: 🖤💙❤️💜💚
Heat/Steam: N/A
Story/Plot: 📕📗📙📘📔
World building: 🌏🌍🌎🌏🌍
Character development: 🙂🥰☺️😂😋
Narrator(s): 🎙🎙🎙🎙🎙
Narration type: Duet Narration ✨Full Cast✨

The heroine: June Flint – she is in her early thirties, and she recently made a career change. She is now in her dream job as a high school english teacher. Shaping young minds and all that. She feels strongly about encouraging students’ creativity. On her first day in her new job, she sees Mikey Shannon, and she drives into a bunch of garbage cans. She has always had social anxiety, especially when it comes to talking to men.

The Hero: Mikey Shannon – he was a high school and college athlete, always the hometown hero and he returned to town to coach and took his high school team to two state championships. He then quit to coach at the college, but it didn’t work out, so he went back teach physical education at the high school. He is good with the kids but doesn’t volunteer to help much at the school and doesn’t speak up much in meetings.

The Story: The book begins with the world going a little crazy. The northern lights are seen in the sky over nearly a month often taking out all cell service, then a huge solar flare happens and though many people stay indoors, June keeps to her routine because she is in charge of the free breakfast program at the school and doesn’t want to let down the kids. However, during the solar flare, June is somehow propelled through a wormhole and ends up 85 years in the future.

June is able to make a phone call on her cell, and somehow, she ends up connected with Mikey a month before the solar flare happened. She explains her situation to him and asks for his help. He agrees even though he doesn’t really know what to believe. She asks him to befriend past June and somehow stop June from being where she was on that day, so she doesn’t get pulled through the wormhole. She finds that she can keep calling him and they work together to get him to be friends with past June, who basically runs away whenever he tries to talk to her.

The story is extremely original and so fun. The two main characters spend most of their time together on the phone. Sometimes future June is even on the phone in his earpiece when he talks to past June, so she cheers him on. Mikey ends up becoming more involved and they both learn things about themselves and becoming very close. I almost didn’t listen to this one, because even though I really liked the previous Cara Bastone audiobooks, they were all a bit too happy, jolly, romantic comedy and I haven’t really been in the mood for a book like that. I am glad I picked it up though because I really liked the characters and the story.

This audiobook was told in dual points of view via duet narration and was narrated by Noah Reed and Zoe Chao. Both of these narrators are new to me, but I really liked them both. Like Bastone’s previous books, this was done with full cast duet narration including sound effects. So, you could hear the background noises like people walking, doorbells, and future June sounded like she was further away, like she was on the other end of the phone. This was overall a terrific book and the narration was perfect.

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