Fifty in Reverse

A Novel

By: Bill Flanagan

Narrated by: Michael Crouch

Length: 5 hrs and 25 mins

Publisher's summary

From TV personality and radio host Bill Flanagan comes a "funny and sharp” (Rosanne Cash, Grammy Award-winning singer/songwriter and best-selling author) time-traveling adventure novel about how the past never gives up its hold on the present and how even 65-year-olds are still kids at heart.

If you had the chance to live your life over again, knowing everything that you know now, would you take it? Would you still take it if it meant losing everything you had today? Would a second chance to correct every mistake and missed opportunity be worth giving up the world you know and the life you have built? In Fifty in Reverse, 15-year-old Peter Wyatt does just that.

In the spring of 1970, Harvard psychologist Terry Canyon is introduced to Peter, a quiet kid from a wealthy family who has been suspended from ninth grade for stripping off his clothes in algebra class. When Terry asks Peter why he did it, the boy explains that he was trying to “shock myself awake”. It turns out that Peter believes he is a 65-year-old man who went to sleep in his home in New York in the year 2020 and woke up in his childhood bedroom 50 years earlier.

Hilariously depicting Peter’s attempts to fit in as a 15-year-old in 1970 and to cope with the tedium, foolishness, and sexual temptations of high school as he tries to retain the sense of himself as a 65-year-old man, Fifty in Reverse is a thought-provoking and enlightening novel about second chances and appreciating where you are in life.

©2020 Bill Flanagan. All rights reserved. (P)2020 Simon & Schuster, Inc. All rights reserved.

Enjoyable listen

Well written book that puts a different spin on time travel. I recommend this book very much

not a long story, but a good one

good story. some good character depth but not a lot of explanation for the time travel part

First half is great, then it’s a train crash. Really disappointing.

This book had a lot of potential, but it was like the author gave up at some point, and decided just to wrap it up. I would not recommend this book to anyone.

had me wondering

I have listened to a lot of time traveling books and this was different. I thought i have figured all the ways things could go but this was different. different as in good. had me guessing untill the end. very nice book. way too short. Book 2 Maybe????

Great Time Loop Story

This novella is the best time loop story I’ve read since Ken Grimwood ‘Replay’. However, unlike Grimwood novel which is set over three decades, this story is set over a few months in 1970. The characters are very well-defined, and I suspect based upon real people in the authors life. I couldn’t turn it off and finished it all in a five hour session. The ending was near perfect!

If you love Replay you should enjoy this

Great quick read. Keeps you listening and gives you that “life redo” content you crave. The narration is on point as well.

Gripping story well told

What if. What if you would be born with your knowledge of today some 50 years ago. A different view on how this plays out and makes one think.

Love a time loop but this didn't quite get there

For anyone saying this is comparable to Replay, take a hike. The main character barely takes advantage of the time loop effect and is generally an annoying downer. The book held my attention but I expected it to go somewhere interesting with the time loop. It let me down on that front.

I wouldn't recommend this for fans of time loop books (like me).

Time travel done right

This was a great novel. My only complaint is that I wish it were longer. This was a page turner (or page listener ) and I couldn’t wait to see how it unfolded. Will there be a number 2? Hope so!

Recommended

I enjoyed this book. The story held my interest and was different from other time travel stories I have read. I appreciate the story was wrapped up in one book and not made into a series. Narration was enjoyable. I look forward to checking out other stories by this author.