Gimme a Call by Sarah Mlynowski

What if you could go back in time and impart to your younger self all the wisdom you’ve acquired since those carefree, innocent days of yore? “In fifth grade, do not put marshmallows in the toaster oven, even though it seems like a good idea…Sophomore year: don’t leave your retainer in a napkin in the cafeteria–unless you want to wade through three spaghetti-and-meatball-filled garbage bins to find it.” Seventeen-year-old Devi gets her wish to reconfigure the past when she accidentally fumbles her cell phone into the mall fountain. Now it will ONLY call her fourteen-year-old self, who she nicknames “Frosh.” Devi has six kinds of big plans to right the wrongs of her high school life in this seemingly free cosmic do-over. But changing the past has all sorts of side effects on her present that she never expected. Like losing the TV in her room that was given to her by her ex-boyfriend, who she now never dated because she warned Frosh to stay away. And finding that her college acceptance letter keeps changing, sometimes for the better, but sometimes not, as Frosh struggles to stay on the militaristic study plan Devi has outlined for her. Soon neither Devi nor Frosh know whether they’re coming or going, and what’s worse, the defective cell phone battery is winding down and wearing out. What’s going to happen when Devi can no longer rearrange her boy-obsessed past to accommodate her college-obsessed present? Devi should probably stop messing with her past before it changes her future for the worse–PERMANENTLY! The brilliance of Sarah Mlynowski’s writing is her bright banter and breezy humor. Her  fresh, dizzyingly fast dialogue always sounds exactly like teenspeak, and she never fails to bring me to giggles if not outright guffaws.  This charming little story is no exception. A perfect beach book to squeeze in between all of those classics you were assigned for summer reading.