Review: "Out of Time" by Caroline B. Cooney

Out of Time by Caroline B. Cooney
Published 1996
★★★★

In Both Sides of Time, Annie was flung a hundred years into the past, landing in 1895, where she fell in love...but eventually had to go back to her own time. In Out of Time, she tries to get Time to send her back—but she what she finds is not what she expects. Strat has been committed to an asylum, Harriett is away at a sanitarium trying to recover from tuberculosis, and the scheming Walker Walkey has his eye on the Stratton money.

I love how distinct each book in this series is. Annie is (usually) the vehicle through whom we get the story, but it's not all one plot run together—the story is distinct each time. Annie is kind of beside the point here, which is just as well because she's by and large the least interesting female character of the book. Or maybe of the series...

Two things to note: first, I'm low-key fascinated by how much Cooney makes a point to remind the reader that although Strat might be a hero of the series and Devonny a heroine, they are very much products of their time and class. Take this from Devonny:

Annie said anxiously, "What if he has some household servant arrested for it? What if he suspects"—Annie tried not to look at Schmidt—"one of your maids or something?

"These things happen," said Devonny, who, indeed, was very like her father.*

Or there's Strat:

Annie was still doubtful. "I think it would be better if—"

Strat kissed her. It was not affection. It was a kiss to close her lips. "I know best, Anna Sophia. Don't worry your little head anymore. You have done very well to get so far, and I'll handle it from now on."

She had the brief thought that being a gentleman in Strat's Time was also being a very pushy chauvinist, but she set the thought aside, as many a woman had done, and let him handle it as he saw fit.*

What I love about this is that it adds a layer of complexity to these characters. We're supposed to cheer for them, and I do—but they feel true to their time and class in a way that they wouldn't if, say, Devonny was all up in arms about the rights of servants. She has a lot to learn, and...she'll get to some of it, but definitely not all.

And second, on this reread, I cottoned on to just how much the series worships the land of Thin and treats fatness with disgust. It gets even more marked in book 3 of the series, but, gosh. It's here too. I still flipping love the series (I don't know what my star rating would be if I were reading it for the first time, but I can't separate my current read from my experience of reading the series as a kid), but on those grounds alone I'd probably be cautious about when and to whom I recommended the books.

*I'd include page numbers, but they're useless in the library ebook I read.