Once in a Timeline (publication day October 13, 2026) by Iman Hariri-Kia was an interesting take on a contemporary romance with some magical realism thrown in. I must admit it took me a while to get into it, because I was annoyed at the main character–Laia Grace–as she is an influencer and the first few chapters are her narration of her “perfect day” living in New York City. It’s full of descriptions of her Pilates class, what she eats in a day, errands, touch up on her nails, going to a brand event, and finally home.
The catch here is that this happens over and over, the same thing every day, until Laia notices some things that are weird, including a woman at the Pilates studio who tells her that “It’s OK not to be OK.” What? Laia is fine, her life is perfect. But the facade begins to crack, and her day is definitely not perfect when the homeless man she gives a dollar to dumps his Big Gulp drink all over her head. She is rescued by another man, a tall, curly-haired, bearded man who repeats the “It’s OK not to be OK” to her.
Over pancakes, Noah tells her he thinks she’s stuck in the algorithm–that they’re having a “Groundhog Day” moment–where she’s reliving the same perfect day over and over, stuck in a time loop. After he admits to following her vlogs, she dismisses him as a stalker, but then he shows up the next morning at her Pilates class, and they spend more time together, and she realizes he might be right.
Once she meets Noah, things pick up, but I was pretty lost in the beginning as to what was happening. After she meets Noah, they spend their days together and plan to figure out how they can break out of the algorithm and time loop. Of course, along the way, they fall in love.
There is a twist at the end that I didn’t see coming, but it made sense. If you’ve read Nina George’s The Book of Dreams, it will be familiar. I enjoyed the touches of Persian culture and Laia’s journey to be true to herself. It was an enjoyable read, and weight neutral. As an influencer, Laia talks about how “everybody is beautiful” and how she doesn’t “endorse going on a diet” and although it seems surface-level, there wasn’t any other anti-fat bias noted.
