Your Life Has Been Delayed by Michelle I. Mason

This post contains affiliate links, which means if you make a purchase using that link, a small commission is made from the sale. There are no additional costs to you.

Your Life Has Been Delayed by Michelle I. Mason
Published by Bloomsbury YA on September 7, 2021
Age Group & Genres: Contemporary, Young Adult
Format: eBook
Source: Library

Past and present, friends and crushes collide in a YA debut about a girl who takes off on a flight and lands 25 years later.

Jenny Waters boards her flight in 1995, but when she lands, she and the other passengers are told they disappeared . . . 25 years ago. Everyone thought they were dead.

Now contending with her family and friends fast-forwarding decades, Jenny must quickly adjust to smartphones and social media while being the biggest story to hit the internet. She feels betrayed by her once-best friend and fights her attraction to a cute boy with an uncomfortable connection to her past. Meanwhile, there’s a growing group of conspiracy theorists determined to prove the whole situation is a hoax. Will Jenny figure out how to move forward, or will she always be stuck in the past?

If I don’t think about it too much, Your Life Has Been Delayed was a lot of fun to read. Mason’s debut novel starts in 1995 when Jenny Waters is visiting her grandparents in New York and ends up in St. Louis 25 years later where everyone believed the passengers on her flight were dead and have moved on with life.

While Jenny and the rest of her fellow passengers and the crew haven’t aged, everyone else has: it’s a new century, there’s a lot of new technology and pop culture and history, etc. Her younger brother (at least back in 1995) is now kind of (?) her older brother with his own family, her parents are older and retired, people have come and gone.

It’s just a lot to contend with on top of the conspiracy theories (there’s even a group that’s trying to call them a hoax) and sudden social media spotlight that’s on her given she was the youngest passenger on the flight. Everyone wants to know everything about her and what she’s doing and all, and meanwhile Jenny is just bamboozled by time and wanting everything to still be 1995. She’s having a bit of a hard time adjusting, and who can blame her?

Some Quick Thoughts

• I liked the dynamic between her brother and her and how it had to change, along with the dynamic with her family and friends who are now older. I think it’s pretty well-portrayed how as life changes and paths diverge from what was known before, relationships also have to change as well if they’re to survive.
• Being a native St. Louisan like Mason, it was nice seeing some changes and incorporations that I’ve grown up seeing as well, like the Chesterfield Mall being demolished. On the other hand, it’s also weird knowing what’s been fictionalized and changed, but that’s on me.
• It feels quite iffy with Dylan being her former boyfriend’s son, but I guess the logic makes sense? However, it’s weird and kind of borderline creepy that he knows a lot of facts about her prior to them actually meeting, even if it was on the knowledge that she was “dead.”
• I’m not a big fan of how everyone tiptoes around Jenny being overly protective and trying to keep information from her. I get why because it is a lot of sudden change to process and the emotions/feelings involved, but I feel like they could’ve been more aware of how Jenny seems resourceful and ambitious enough to figure things out on her own even with the changes in tools available to her — she’s definitely sharp enough to notice everyone is keeping things from her.
  • Also, in the age of social media where information can be retrieved fast? I don’t know how Jenny’s family and best friend really thought they could’ve kept it from her.
• The ending felt pretty lackluster, honestly, and I think sometimes the drama with Ashling (and even just in general) felt a bit too much.

Overall, it’s quite clear Your Life Has Been Delayed is a debut novel and Mason probably had a lot of fun writing this. It’s not the pinnacle of YA fiction or anything even remotely close, but I also picked this one up without any expectations whatsoever.