Here I Go, Here I Go, Here I Go Again: 5 Great Time Loop Novels
Just in time for Groundhog’s Day (the holiday), we have a list of great time loop novels like Groundhog’s Day (the movie)!
Just in time for Groundhog’s Day (the holiday), we have a list of great time loop novels like Groundhog’s Day (the movie)!
Just kidding! If you’re familiar with the 1993 film, you know that reporter Bill Murray gets stuck in a small town covering the news about Punxsutawney Phil, the groundhog who may or may not see his shadow. But because Murray’s character is a terrible person, cosmic forces make him live the day over and over until he gets it right.
Time loop stories involve a period of time, whether it’s minutes, days, or years, that people are forced to relive. It’s a great premise for a movie (see also: the amazing Palm Springs) and for a book. If you had to do things over (and over), what would you change? And what constitutes getting it right? Here are five great books about that very dilemma. Don’t be a Punxsutawney Pill—check them out! (And don’t drive angry.)
Replay by Ken Grimwood
One of the classics of the subgenre, Replay follows Jeff Winston. He doesn’t know how he managed to go to bed 43 years old and wake up 18 in his college dorm again, but he goes along with it, seeing as he doesn’t have a choice. But after living out those 25 years again, he wakes up back in his dorm. And then it happens again. As Jeff repeats his years of love, work, and family, he works to find the tweaks he needs to make to move on past 43.
The First Fifteen Lives of Harry August by Claire North
Harry North has died ten times. It’s okay: he always comes back. No matter what decisions he makes, every time he dies, he returns to himself as a child. As a child who remembers all his previous lives, that is. But then something changes. While on his deathbed at the end of his eleventh life, a young girl, a stranger, appears at his side and tells him she needs to send a message. This small ripple will have cataclysmic consequences for what was and what will be, with Harry in the middle of it.
Neverworld Wake by Marisha Pessl
It’s bad enough having to live the same day over and over, but imagine you have to decide which four of your friends have to die while they are thinking the same thing about you. That’s the driving force behind Pessl’s young adult debut. Beatrice and her four friends are gathering for a party a year after graduation, and hours after, they are almost killed in a car crash. Then a stranger knocks on their door and tells them they must unanimously pick one person among themselves to live, and the other four will die. Seems like a bananas idea, right? Get lost, weird guy. But Beatrice and her friends will soon discover the punishment for not following his instructions, and as they repeat the horrors of that day over and over, choices start being made.
All You Need Is Kill by Ryosuke Takeuchi, Yoshitoshi Abe, Hiroshi Sakurazaka, and Takeshi Obata
I’m going with a time loop story in manga form this time around! (Pun intended.) Keiji Kiriya is a soldier sent into battle to fight off the invading alien Mimics. Every day, Keiji Kiriya fights the Mimics like the brave soldier he is, and every day he dies, only to wake up and do the whole thing over again. But after his 157th death, he receives a message from Full Metal Bitch, another soldier. Can she help him get out of his loop, or will she bring about his last death? This was the inspiration behind the movie Edge of Tomorrow.
Midnight Strikes by Zeba Shahnaz
And last but not least is this YA fantasy debut, a fairy tale time-loop story! Anaïs is at the kingdom’s anniversary ball, but she’d rather be anywhere else, and can’t wait to get home and back to her own bed. Unfortunately, Anaïs is going to get her wish sooner than she thought. Because when the bells chime at midnight, an explosion destroys the palace and there are no survivors. Not even Anaïs…except somehow she wakes up back in her bed, just in time to get ready for the ball. How is that possible? Even worse, Anaïs remembers the explosion and no one else does, so they are doomed to let it happen over and over again until she can figure out who is behind the bomb plot and stop them before she has to repeat it all again.
Okay, star bits, now take the knowledge you have learned here today and use it for good, not evil. If you want to know more about books, I talk about books pretty much nonstop (when I’m not reading them), and you can hear me say lots of adjectives about them on the Book Riot podcast All the Books! and on Bluesky and Instagram.