Let’s talk about a controversial narrative structure in books: dual timelines. Some people love them, some people hate them! Dual timelines usually present as past and present narratives that are linked together by a common mystery, thread, or story. Sometimes dual timelines are told from the perspective of the same character, but they can be told from two different characters’ perspectives at different points in time. The important key to remember, and what separates dual timelines from a multiple narrator or dual perspectives story, is that one timeline is typically set in the past and another is set closer to the present. I fall in the reader camp that loves dual timelines. I love the switch between characters, seeing how the past informs the present, and the little clues that the author leaves for readers to find. Below I have gathered six young adult novels with dual timelines that have caught my attention recently. As of this writing, all of these titles are owned by the Davenport Public Library. Descriptions are provided by the publishers.
All You Have to Do by Autumn Allen
In All You Have to Do, two young Black men attend prestigious schools nearly thirty years apart, yet both navigate similar forms of insidious racism.
In April 1968, in the wake of Martin Luther King, Jr.’s assassination, Kevin joins a protest that shuts down his Ivy League campus . . .
In September 1995, amid controversy over the Million Man March, Gibran challenges the “See No Color” hypocrisy of his prestigious New England prep school . . .
As the two students, whose lives overlap in powerful ways, risk losing the opportunities their parents worked hard to provide, they move closer to discovering who they want to be instead of accepting as fact who society and family tell them they are. – Kokila
Death at Morning House by Maureen Johnson
The fire wasn’t Marlowe Wexler’s fault. Dates should be hot, but not hot enough to warrant literal firefighters. Akilah, the girl Marlowe has been in love with for years, will never go out with her again. No one dates an accidental arsonist.
With her house-sitting career up in flames, it seems the universe owes Marlowe a new summer job, and that’s how she ends up at Morning House, a mansion built on an island in the 1920s and abandoned shortly thereafter. It’s easy enough, giving tours. Low risk of fire. High chance of getting bored talking about stained glass and nut cutlets and Prohibition.
Oh, and the deaths. Did anyone mention the deaths?
Maybe this job isn’t such a gift after all. Morning House has a horrific secret that’s been buried for decades, and now the person who brought her here is missing.
All it takes is one clue to set off a catastrophic chain of events. One small detail, just like a spark, could burn it all down—if someone doesn’t bury Marlowe first. – HarperCollins
Going Bicoastal by Dahlia Adler
Natalya Fox has twenty-four hours to make the biggest choice of her life: stay home in NYC for the summer with her dad (and finally screw up the courage to talk to the girl she’s been crushing on), or spend it with her basically estranged mom in LA (knowing this is the best chance she has to fix their relationship, if she even wants to.) (Does she want to?)
How’s a girl supposed to choose?
She can’t, and so both summers play out in alternating timelines – one in which Natalya explores the city, tries to repair things with her mom, works on figuring out her future, and goes for the girl she’s always wanted. And one in which Natalya explores the city, tries to repair things with her mom, works on figuring out her future, and goes for the guy she never saw coming. – Wednesday Books
Nothing Burns as Bright as You by Ashley Woodfolk
Two girls. One wild and reckless day. Years of tumultuous history unspooling like a thin, fraying string in the hours after they set a fire.
They were best friends. Until they became more. Their affections grew. Until the blurry lines became dangerous.
Over the course of a single day, the depth of their past, the confusion of their present, and the unpredictability of their future is revealed. And the girls will learn that hearts, like flames, aren’t so easily tamed.
It starts with a fire.
How will it end? – Versify
Only This Beautiful Moment by Abdi Nazemian
2019. Moud is an out gay teen living in Los Angeles with his distant father, Saeed. When Moud gets the news that his grandfather in Iran is dying, he accompanies his dad to Tehran, where the revelation of family secrets will force Moud into a new understanding of his history, his culture, and himself.
1978. Saeed is an engineering student with a promising future ahead of him in Tehran. But when his parents discover his involvement in the country’s burgeoning revolution, they send him to safety in America, a country Saeed despises. And even worse—he’s forced to live with the American grandmother he never knew existed.
1939. Bobby, the son of a calculating Hollywood stage mother, lands a coveted MGM studio contract. But the fairy-tale world of glamour he’s thrust into has a dark side.
Set against the backdrop of Tehran and Los Angeles, this tale of intergenerational trauma and love is an ode to the fragile bonds of family, the hidden secrets of history, and all the beautiful moments that make us who we are today. – HarperCollins
Some Mistakes Were Made by Kristin Dwyer
Ellis and Easton have been inseparable since childhood. But when a rash decision throws Ellis’s life—and her relationship with Easton—into chaos, she’s forced to move halfway across the country, far from everything she’s ever known.
Now Ellis hasn’t spoken to Easton in a year, and maybe it’s better that way; maybe eventually the Easton-shaped hole in her heart will heal.
But when Easton’s mom invites her home for a visit, Ellis finds herself tangled up in the web of heartache, betrayal, and anger she left behind . . . and with the boy she never stopped loving. – HarperCollins
“Sometimes we get so tied up in our idea of what we think we want that we miss out on the amazingness of what we could actually have.”
