At this exact moment, Neon is in the bathroom. In his girlfriend's bedroom, she's waiting for him to return so they can have sex for the first time. Flash back twenty-four seconds before that and he's considering what is coming up. Flash back twenty-four minutes and he's getting to her house. Flash back twenty-four hours....and so on.
Each chapter takes us back in time as Neon relives the moments that led to this big one. Despite being billed as a "love story," this is not a romance so much as a story of how Neon was taught the values that go on to inform his conduct. His parents and his sister have talked to him about sex. His grandfather also shaped those values. And while the story is told in reverse, it all makes sense in the end.
It's Christopher Nolan's Momento meets Judy Blume's Forever, with a Black American perspective. Lots of potential and a big gimmick, but it doesn't really pan out for me. There are moments that shine (I particularly liked the minister's eulogy at grandfather's funeral) but much of the story is simply not that interesting. And the reverse timeline is a difficult thing to pull off in a genre that relies so much on building on top of what we already know. For example, it's really hard to feel much for the couple's meet cute when it happens near the end of the book. So many of the details are known long before they happen that the usual emotional build up doesn't occur.
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