How many times can you read a book you love? Easy: an infinite amount of times.
How many times can you lose the one you love? Hard: Katherine and Matthew are about to find out.
The Next Together is Lauren James's debut about reincarnation and true love. The story follows two characters, Katherine and Matthew, through four different time periods: 2039, 2019, 1854 and 1745. In each time period, each version of Katherine and Matthew are trying to save the world and change history while they fall deeply in love. Before any version of Katherine and Matthew can really change the course of history, they are tragically separated, just to be reborn again without any knowledge of each other.
This book is extremely original because of its story but also because of its format. Firstly, one of my favorite things about the book non-writing-wise, is how each time period is written in a different font. 2039 Kate and Matt's story is written in a futuristic-looking font, while 1745 Katherine and Matthew's journey is transcribed in a type-writer-looking font to match the time period. Secondly, I also enjoyed the small timeline bar that ran across the top of each page with a little arrow that pointed at where Katherine and Matthew were in history (or future) at that point in the book. Lastly, another treat were the newspaper clippings, text message, website pages, diary entries and refrigerator notes that each chapter had an abundance of. Each one added humor to the story and told the reader something about Katherine and Matthew. They were also really nice because they broke heavy bits of text easily and kept the story interesting.
Another interesting aspect of this book were all the time-landscape notes at the bottom of each important document, moment or progression. These short notes made it seem like there was another element to the story, as if there was someone watching Katherine and Matthew, which is definitely creepy, but kept readers on their toes. These notes also made readers wonder if there was some sort of technology aspect behind the reincarnations.
Now onto the actual book. I loved the pacing of it most of all, because I never once mixed up any of the Katherines or Matthews. I personally got a bit confused when the one intervention that was allowed happened, and then all the description that followed (if you read the book, do you follow what I mean?) but when I kept reading, everything worked itself out and it all made sense. You just had to read through it. Also, I got confused on who was fighting who over what during the siege of Carlisle in 1745, but that's probably because I never learned about that in history class, and I also live in America (this book is only available to the UK and Australia, I believe, and the author is from England, so I think this just confused me). Although, the nice file note that explained the Crimean War under the map of the route on page 37 was extremely helpful with what was going on in that time period and I can't help but wish there was something similar for the siege of Carlisle in 1745. My last note on pacing is that even though part of me wished there was an intervention sooner, where it actually was matched the pacing very well. You could not get mad at the perfect pacing of this book.
I also loved the effortless way Lauren James weaved the time periods together. Readers start to notice that each Katherine and Matthew are essentially the same people when the Katherines of the future time periods start dreaming and imagining their Matthews wearing the same clothes that the historical Matthews might were. Also, some aspects of other Matthews and Katherines stayed connected even as they kept being reincarnated, like how Matt wanted to be a journalist when he was younger like Matthew was in time period 1854 (as explained on page 141). And, of course, the traces of witty humor and shy awkwardness stayed completely attached to each Katherine and Matthew readers learn to love just as deeply as they love each other.
In short, this book was amazing, witty, humorous, and a book I would definitely recommend. The format of the book, including all the neat notes, pictures and documents, the font types and the timeline bar added another element of creativity and thoughtfulness. The pacing was wonderful and extremely easy to follow. I never once felt lost and, after reading other reviews, I know other readers felt the same way. The writing was amazing and , even if there was no bibliography, you could just tell that James did her research on the historical time periods. Each Katherine and Matthew were reminiscent of Katherines and Matthews of other time periods.
The whole story kept readers on their toes and was definitely worth it in the end. I cannot wait to read the second book and hope to see much more of Lauren James in the future.
*This review can also be found on my Goodreads page*
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