The Five Times I Met Myself

The Five Times I Met Myself - James L Rubart

What if you met your twenty-three year old self in a dream? What would you say?

Brock Matthews' once promising life is unraveling. His coffee company. His marriage.

So when he discovers his vivid dreams—where he encounters his younger self—might let him change his past mistakes, he jumps at the chance. The results are astonishing, but also disturbing.

Because getting what Brock wants most in the world will force him to give up the one thing he doesn't know how to let go of . . . and his greatest fear is it's already too late.

I love time travel books and although strictly this isn't one - that was why I was attracted to it, it's the thought that if you had the chance to go back and maybe change past mistakes, would you?

Brock uses something called "Lucid dreaming" to meet his younger self with amazing results. I loved all the 1980s references and how well the author captured what you might well say to someone who purported to be you from the future.

The books draws it's own similarities with the Back to the Future films - but for me this was a lot like Ken Grimwood's Replay and the lucid dreaming, well I think that was done very well by the master Jack Finney in his Time and again books.

I think the author handled the different timelines very well and the present day Brock's reaction to them. It was at times difficult to keep apace with the different changes and what had happened. But a little like Groundhog day, I got to expect the unexpected when Brock woke up each time. It also made me think that if he was going to be stuck in one of these new realities, how was he going to cope, when he knew so little about what had happened to him in the past.

I thought the ending was clever and not one I guessed hard to do as I think I maybe am too hard a critic having read so many time travel books. To give another comparison, the film It's a Wonderful Life was also going through my mind at this point. The one difference I think the author has is the links he makes to this being God's work. The religious side isn't too heavy, but steer clear if that really isn't your sort of thing.

I've drawn lots of comparisons in this review - for me that's not a bad thing, as all those books/films are ones I enjoy.

I'm giving this book 4 out of 5 stars and my thanks go to Netgalley for a free ecopy of the book to review.

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