Sometimes the universe has a twisted sense of humor. Jeneva Rose’s The Girl I Was proves this point with devastating clarity, serving up a time-travel premise that’s equal parts hilarious and heartbreaking. This isn’t your typical romance about finding love—it’s about finding yourself, even when that self happens to be an eighteen-year-old disaster you’d rather forget.
Rose, who has previously captivated readers with psychological thrillers like The Perfect Marriage and The Perfect Divorce or You Shouldn’t Have Come Here and Home Is Where the Bodies Are takes a bold departure into contemporary women’s fiction with time-travel elements. The result is a novel that manages to be both deeply personal and universally relatable, wrapped in early 2000s nostalgia that will have you cringing at your own past choices.
The Setup That Changes Everything
Alexis Spencer’s life implodes spectacularly on a single day—losing both her job and her relationship with Andrew, the man she planned to spend forever with. Armed with nothing but a bottle of mysterious vodka from her college days and a mountain of regrets, she drinks herself into oblivion. When she wakes up, she’s not just hungover—she’s fourteen years in the past, face-to-face with her eighteen-year-old self, Lexi.
The premise sounds like something out of a feel-good romantic comedy, but Rose cleverly subverts expectations. This isn’t about changing the past to fix the future; it’s about confronting the uncomfortable truth that we are often our own worst enemy. The collision between Alexis and Lexi creates sparks of both comedy and conflict that drive the narrative forward with surprising momentum.
Two Sides of the Same Coin
The brilliance of Rose’s approach lies in how she treats Alexis and Lexi as distinct characters despite being the same person. Alexis represents the cynical, defeated adult who’s learned that life doesn’t hand out happy endings. Lexi embodies the reckless optimism of youth, convinced that everything will work out simply because she wants it to. Their relationship is contentious, hilarious, and ultimately touching as they’re forced to confront their shared flaws and strengths.
Rose’s dialogue crackles with authenticity, particularly in the early scenes where Alexis tries to convince Lexi of her identity. The exchanges feel natural and often laugh-out-loud funny, showcasing Rose’s gift for character voice. Lexi’s disbelief and Alexis’s frustration create a dynamic that keeps readers engaged while slowly revealing deeper truths about both versions of this complex character.
Romance That Transcends Time
The romantic elements center around Andrew, Alexis’s lost love who appears in 2002 as Lexi’s tutor. Rose handles this reunion with remarkable sensitivity, avoiding the trap of making it purely about second chances. Instead, she explores how love can be both destined and fragile, requiring work and growth from both parties.
The scenes between young Lexi and Andrew are particularly well-crafted, showing the innocent beginning of a relationship that Alexis knows will eventually crumble. Rose doesn’t shy away from the pain of watching love bloom while knowing how it ends, creating moments that are simultaneously beautiful and devastating.
The Weight of Loss and Grief
Perhaps the most powerful element of the novel is its exploration of grief, particularly around the loss of Alexis’s mother during college. Rose draws from personal experience here, and it shows in the raw authenticity of these scenes. The Thanksgiving visit home is particularly gut-wrenching, as Alexis gets to see her mother one last time while knowing she can’t save her.
This isn’t grief as plot device; it’s grief as the foundation of character development. Rose understands that losing a parent while young fundamentally changes a person, and she doesn’t offer easy solutions or magical healing. Instead, she shows how accepting loss can be the first step toward self-forgiveness.
Early 2000s Nostalgia Done Right
Rose has clearly done her homework when it comes to early 2000s culture. From dial-up internet to Von Dutch hats, the details feel authentic rather than forced. The pop culture references serve the story rather than overwhelming it, creating a believable backdrop for the time-travel elements. Lexi’s attempts to use contemporary books and movies to figure out time travel are both amusing and cleverly self-aware.
Where the Magic Falters
While the novel succeeds on many levels, it occasionally struggles with pacing in the middle sections. Some of Lexi’s schemes to send Alexis back to her own time feel repetitive, and certain subplots involving college friends don’t quite reach their full potential. The time-travel mechanics remain deliberately vague, which works thematically but may frustrate readers looking for more scientific explanations.
The ending, while emotionally satisfying, resolves certain plot threads perhaps too neatly. Rose’s background in psychological thrillers sometimes shows through in moments that feel slightly over-dramatic for the contemporary women’s fiction genre she’s working in here.
A Personal Journey Disguised as Fantasy
What elevates The Girl I Was above typical time-travel fiction is Rose’s commitment to emotional truth. This isn’t really about changing the past—it’s about accepting it. The novel argues that our younger selves, flawed as they were, deserve compassion rather than blame. It’s a message that resonates particularly strongly in an era where we’re constantly confronted with evidence of our past mistakes through social media and digital permanence.
Rose’s writing style has evolved considerably from her thriller roots. Her prose here is more introspective and character-driven, though it occasionally lacks the tight plotting that made her previous works so compelling. The emotional beats are well-earned, particularly in the final third where both versions of the protagonist begin to understand what they need from each other.
Standing Among Time-Travel Tales
In the landscape of time-travel romance, The Girl I Was distinguishes itself through its focus on self-improvement rather than romantic fulfillment. While it shares DNA with novels like The Time Traveler’s Wife or Replay, Rose’s approach is more grounded in contemporary women’s fiction than science fiction or epic romance.
The book would particularly appeal to readers who enjoyed Beach Read by Emily Henry or The Seven Husbands of Evelyn Hugo by Taylor Jenkins Reid—novels that blend humor, heart, and hard truths about growing up and moving forward.
Similar Reads to Consider
Fans of The Girl I Was should consider:
- The Midnight Library by Matt Haig – Another story about confronting life’s choices and possibilities
- In Five Years by Rebecca Serle – Time elements mixed with personal growth and romance
- The Invisible Life of Addie LaRue by V.E. Schwab – Themes of memory, identity, and what we leave behind
- Eleanor Oliphant Is Completely Fine by Gail Honeyman – Character-driven story about healing and self-acceptance
- The Ten Thousand Doors of January by Alix E. Harrow – Portal fantasy with themes of finding yourself
Final Verdict
The Girl I Was represents a successful genre shift for Jeneva Rose, proving her versatility as a storyteller. While it may not have the addictive page-turning quality of her thrillers, it offers something perhaps more valuable: genuine insight into the human condition wrapped in an engaging, emotionally resonant package.
The novel’s greatest strength lies in its understanding that the person we were and the person we become are both worthy of love and forgiveness. It’s a message delivered with humor, heart, and just enough magic to make the impossible feel inevitable.
For readers seeking a blend of romance, time travel, and personal growth, The Girl I Was delivers on all fronts. It’s the kind of book that will make you want to call that friend you’ve lost touch with, forgive your younger self for that embarrassing mistake, and maybe, just maybe, believe that it’s never too late to change your life.
Rose has crafted a love letter to second chances—not just with others, but with ourselves. In a world where we’re often our harshest critics, The Girl I Was offers the radical notion that maybe, just maybe, we were doing the best we could with what we had. And sometimes, that’s enough to build a future worth living.
