Teen Fiction - Girls & Young Women

Gimme a Call

Name: Gimme a Call
Author: Sarah Mlynowski
ISBN: 9780385735896

by Sarah Mlynowski

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Overview

A new life is just a phone call away!

Devi's life isn't turning out at all like she wanted. She wasted the past three years going out with Bryan—cute, adorable, break-your-heart Bryan. Devi let her friendships fade, blew off studying, didn't join any clubs . . . and now that Bryan has broken up with her, she has nothing left.

Not even her stupid cell phone—she dropped it in the mall fountain. Now it only calls one number . . . hers. At age fourteen, three years ago!

Once Devi gets over the shock—and convinces her younger self that she isn't some wacko—she realizes that she's been given an awesome gift. She can tell herself all the right things to do . . . because she's already done all the wrong ones! Who better to take advice from than your future self?

Except . . .what if getting what you think you want changes everything?

Fans of Sarah Mlynowski's Magic in Manhattan series will love this hilarious novel with a high-concept premise .

Synopsis

A new life is just a phone call away!

Not even her stupid cell phone—she dropped it in the mall fountain. Now it only calls one number . . . hers. At age fourteen, three years ago!

Except . . .what if getting what you think you want changes everything?

Fans of Sarah Mlynowski's Magic in Manhattan series will love this hilarious new novel with a high-concept premise .

Publishers Weekly

Teens who long to fix past mistakes can do so vicariously in Mlynowski's (the Magic in Manhattan series) farcical fantasy. After retrieving her cellphone from a fountain, high school senior Devi discovers the only person she can call is herself—three years earlier. She immediately sees this as a way to warn herself not to get involved with the boyfriend who will break her heart. Freshman Devi is reluctant to take the advice of a “Crazy Stalker Girl” from the future, but eventually decides to change her fate by refusing to date a cute baseball player, forming a tighter bond with her girlfriends, and trying to persuade her father to quit his job before he gets laid off. As Devi strives to rewrite her history, unexpected mishaps occur. Switching between each Devi's perspective, the book delivers a mixed message about meddling with fate, showing that taking charge of one's life is important but indicating that some things—like falling in love—are destined to happen. Nonetheless, Devi's frenzied attempts to better herself create some funny moments and a touching conclusion. Ages 12-up. (Apr.)

About the Author, Sarah Mlynowski

Sarah Mylnowski is the author of numerous novels, including Bras & Broomsticks and Frogs & French Kisses. She spent nine summers at sleep-away camp, where she enjoyed campfires, color wars, and conjuring up excuses to get out of swimming lessons. She now lives and writes in New York City.

From the Hardcover edition.

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Editorials

Publishers Weekly

Kirkus Reviews

In the waning weeks of her senior year of high school, Devi is wishing for a four-year do-over. Longtime love Bryan has broken up with her to attend college in Montreal, and because Devi's been so wrapped up in her relationship with Bryan, her relationships with her former BFFs and older sister Maya have evaporated and she's barely managed to be admitted to a very low-tier state university. An accidental dunk in the local mall's fountain transforms her cell phone into a time-traveling communications device, letting senior-year Devi talk to her freshman-year self. Older Devi, bent on righting the wrongs of the last four years, pressures younger Devi into abandoning Bryan and focusing on friends, grades and extracurricular activities. Every small change freshman Devi makes effects a dramatic change in senior Devi's reality-a query about starting a girl's golf team yields buff arms and acceptance to UCLA, for example-eventually leading the two Devis to embrace moderation in matters both academic and romantic. Fun and easy to relate to, but no great shakes. (Time-travel chick-lit. YA)

Children's Literature - Phyllis Kennemer

Devi is devastated. Although she and Bryan have dated throughout her high school years, she has broken up with him just before the senior prom. She is wishing she could go back in time and erase the relationship from her life. Then, her cell phone falls into water. When she retrieves it, the only number she can call is herself as a beginning freshman. Devi gives her younger self advice for two weeks. She insists that Frosh Devi should not go out with Bryan, and she advises her about improving her study habits and adding extracurricular activities so that she can get into a better college. Each time Frosh Devi does something differently, Senior Devi is thrust into an unfamiliar situation. She gets letters of acceptance from different colleges and when her friends mention her prior boyfriends, she has no recollection of having been with them. Frosh Devi persists in some of the changes as she drops others. These changes throw Senior Devi's life into turmoil. Her friends have also changed. She doesn't know who she has agreed to go to the prom with. The changes in her parents' lives are bizarre and unbelievable. Senior Devi has no memory of what has happened, and it is too much of a stretch to accept that her actions affected their lives so drastically. The concept that every decision we make has an impact on what we become is commendable, but the constant changing of scenes and situations is so confusing that the story as a whole lacks credibility. Reviewer: Phyllis Kennemer, Ph.D.

VOYA - Jennifer Ingram

Seventeen-year-old Devi drops her phone in a fountain at the mall. The incident makes it possible for Devi to call her fourteen-year-old self from the future, warning her to turn down a date with Bryan, who will monopolize her high school existence and break her heart at the end of it. Fourteen-year-old Devi initially follows the advice from the future, which leads her to a supersuccessful high school career culminating in admission to Harvard. Then she ignores the advice from the future, turning into a dropout and shop girl. Finally, the two Devis work together to set things back to where they belong. Mlynowski plays with alternate worlds in this novel, exploring how different priorities in high school can affect future success. She plays with ethics, too, when future Devi feeds exam answers to her past self—Mlynowski is asking whether the end justifies the means (it does not). Still, the novel has no great substance, and its close focus on high school life becomes tiring after awhile. Perhaps a shorter, tighter book might have worked better. Reviewer: Jennifer Ingram

School Library Journal

Gr 7–10—Just weeks away from high school graduation and suffering from being dumped by her long-term boyfriend, Devi's cell phone magically downloads a time warp app after an accidental dunk in the mall fountain in this novel (Delacorte, 2010) by Sarah Mlynowski. The one person she can call is her freshman self. The "girls" name themselves "Ivy" (the older Devi) and "Frosh" (the younger). Ivy convinces Frosh to change her choices in order to revise Ivy's present life. College acceptances and the circumstances surrounding Ivy's family and friends morph continually as Ivy demands more and more modifications from Frosh. The personas of the main character plus the mercurial situations of every character in the book will probably perplex listeners. Add a basically unvoiced narration by Cassandra Campbell and confusion reigns as listeners try to sort out just who is talking, what year it is, and who is taking whom to the prom. It is also difficult to ascertain whether parts of the reading are unspoken thoughts or audible conversations. The beginning and ending of each disk is not indicated, nor is the number of each disk. Chapters are announced. For many teens, the print version is apt to be better accepted than the audiobook.—Jennifer Ward, Albany Public Library, NY