Have to admit to this not being the easiest read for me but I did really enjoy the book- very thought provoking. Cassandra was a complex character and I loved the time travel/sliding doors concept, where she learnt how to read other’s behaviour.
Persevere with this one, it’s worth it.

I really enjoyed this. I didn't expect the time travel element and it was interesting. I liked that, in the end, the love story wasn't the most important thing.

'My theory is that my brain is like a lazy IT department, and every time there's a problem with the electrics it just panics and pulls the plug out at the wall. Switch her off, switch her back on again: see if that helps'.

I loved, loved, loved this! A contender for my favourite book of 2023. There were definitely hints of Sally Diamond and Eleanor Oliphant in this book, and perhaps that is why I enjoyed it so much.

Who on earth can lose their boyfriend, their job and their home in the same morning? Cassandra can! Bad luck or self-inflicted? Maybe a bit of both, but when Cassandra realises she can manipulate time to change the past, she sets out to do just that, not necessarily with the outcome she wants, so she tries again and again!

Such an amazing character. Cassandra stayed with me for many days after I’d finished the book. She resonated with me a lot, her quirky ways, her routines, just many things about her and I so want to be her best friend - even if she wouldn’t want to be mine!

I’m glad Holly wrote a beautiful story about neurodivergence.

Thank you to NetGalley and Random House UK for the opportunity to read and review The Cassandra Complex by Holly Smale.

Thoroughly enjoyed it. Plot line was interesting and had me hooked, however, I really loved the witty and crisp writing style.

Thanks to #netgalley for giving me the opportunity to read this book before it’s publishing date. The character is very interesting indeed as is the story behind her,

It's difficult to allocate this to a specific genre - fantasy? It has time travel (of a sort). Whatever genre Groundhog Day would fit in, that would probably suit.

Our female main character Cassandra has a very bad day, she gets dumped, fired and then her favourite cafe is out of her favourite banana muffins.

There's a little bit of an incident and she finds she's jumped back in time. Not only that, she can keep going back to do things over and over again - only within this specific window. So of course she sets out to not get dumped, fired and to... eat more muffins.

I really enjoyed this. It has definite groundhog day similarities except she gets 4 months to redo and a little more control. Our main character is very clearly neurospicy in some way, although it's not obvious to her. She just thinks that every interaction is difficult and she likes things a very certain way. But she will keep doing things over and over again to get things right - mainly in terms of how other people react.

I liked the 2 sides of this - on one hand she realises she's erasing herself by trying to be what others want, but on the other, she's paying attention and learning about others in a way she never has before.

I also like that the relationship she's trying to hold on to, maybe isn't going to work iut, but it's not because the male character is a bad person, they're just not right for each other.

I do however think the cover is horrible!

4.25 stars

I really enjoyed this, I loved the main character and thought this was an interesting plot.

Thank you NetGalley for my complimentary copy in return for my honest review.

[Actual rating - 4.5/5]

(Thank you to Netgalley and the publisher for an eARC in exchange for an honest review)

I read all of Holly Smale’s YA books when I was younger so when I saw that she was coming out with an adult fiction I just had to read it, and it did not disappoint.

One of the best parts was our main character Cassandra. She was easy to love and connect to and also had excellent character development throughout the book. I was rooting for her from the beginning and she had such a loving and kind personality. I also loved the time travel aspect as it was woven well into the plot and wasn’t confusing to understand. It also never got repetitive or boring to read her going back over and over, instead, it was written really well. Although we never actually end up finding out why she could suddenly time travel so that part was a little random, it would have been cool if there was a particular reason. There were also bits of Greek mythology mentioned throughout which was really interesting and wasn’t ever overused. This was a brilliant adult debut and I’m excited to see what Holly Smale releases next!

I felt mixed about this one. It was a great premise and it's really good to see neuro-diverse people as main characters. But it lagged a bit in the middle. There were a lot of bits that could have been trimmed. And I wasn't sure if at the end the book was saying autistic people can only really date other autistic people?? Surely not?

cassandra is such a great character, she's bumping up my rating a whole star. i'll never not enjoy a good time loop moment. the greek mythology references were fun too

Although I didn’t have the chance to finish the book in time for it to not be expired I have to say it was an interesting read.
It was funny and mysterious and the narrative of the main character made this book 100x better.
I wish I had had the chance to finish it on time!

This was a very strange story about a woman who seems have a compulsive disorder. During a relationship she keeps going back in time to correct her mistakes and try and make the relationship better., it became a bit repetitive and I lost interest. I am sure others have found it fascinating.

I loved this! Especially loved that the advanced digital copy has chapters!!! So many advanced copies have no chapters and no indication of progress throughout the book - big points for this. The actual book - I loved Cassandra. She felt real and relatable and I loved her journey of both finding and accepting herself. A feel good, happy read that I’d highly recommend!

This was a really enjoyable read, centred all around the character of Cassandra who I'm sure many of us can empathise with!! She's a creature of habit and likes things done in a certain way - if that is not happening then her world spins out of control! She finds herself at a point in her life where things have gone very wrong, but discovers she has the gift of time travel! But only back to 4 months ago.... is that enough to right wrongs and try and make life pan out a different way?! Well, you'll find out if you read this book!!

This book explores the autism spectrum and really shows how simple things that many take for granted affect someone like Cassandra, especially as she can appear to take big tragedies calmly, but goes to pieces for something so insignificant. The flow of the story worked really well and I enjoyed the time travel aspect as I'm sure we'd all like to go back on some occasions and see if things would work out differently if we'd just changed something!

I got The Cassandra Complex by Holly Smale for free from NetGalley for a fair and honest review

The Cassandra Complex tells the story of Cassie, a young woman,who is not exactly a people person. who loses her job in PR and her Boyfriend in 24 Hours along with this she has no family.

Then all of a sudden she has the power to change all this.



The Cassandra Complex is just your average Time travel novel where the main character is able to go back in time varying amounts of time but only over the time since she met her boyfriend who she has just broken up with, and the start of the account at work which caused her to lose her job.

But Holly Smale has added a few twists to the story, firstly Cassie is Neuro Divergent which is the main cause of her inability to be a people person as she can not read what people are thinking through their body language.

While I am no expert in Neuro Divergent issues I did feel that Holly Smale wrote a character in Cassie that was both sympathetic and more than just a 2 dimensional caricature representative of a community.

What I really liked about the time travel part of the story was the way that it allowed Cassie to right the wrongs that had happened but also led to other issues for example. The times that Cassie is both hungry and tired as she’d gone back so often a day had lasted 36 hours.

While for me The Cassandra Complex was more than just a novel where time travel was used to correct a relationship gone bad, it is and was a story about finding your place in the world when you can not understand the world.

Which for me Holly Smale does very well in a novel which could have easily turned into a romantic comedy it became way more than just this genre.

With some of Cassie’s friends having their own issues which Cassie is aware of and now has the tools to solve.

All in all The Cassandra Complex is a story of not only finding your place in the world but being happy with what you have.

Cassandra is a wonderfully complex and misunderstood character. I adore everything about this book, but especially the fact that the main character is neurodivergent.
The time travel element is fun, but also incredibly thought-provoking. I loved seeing the world as Cassie does, it's eye-opening and super refreshing. ⭐️⭐️⭐️⭐️

Cassie’s life is a mess. She’s 31, single, running out of people to flat share with and in a job she hates. She can also time travel, which is really convenient when things go wrong, as they often do, as she can simply rewind and try again.

I simply adored her. It was clear to me from the very first page, that she is autistic but in the story, she doesn’t discover the truth about herself until the end. This is a gloriously, charming, feel good story about the most delightfully, clutzy heroine ever.

I received a free copy of this book via NetGalley in exchange for an honest review.

I'm not sure I was quite the target audience for this one. Largely because I spent the whole book wondering why Cassandra never mentioned that she was so blatantly, obviously, clearly autistic. Having read the author's notes, it's clear that aspect of the story is influenced by the author's own late diagnosis, so clearly it would resonate strongly for her, and for anyone else with this, but I spent the entire book wondering 'why doesn't she mention the autism? Does she not know? How could she not know? Did she have terribly neglectful parents?' which I don't think was the aim of the book.

Other than that, though, this is a very interesting look at relationships, between family, friends, and partners, with a time-travel twist to keep things interesting, and a resolution which is by turns sweet, slightly sappy, and satisfying. I've read some of Holly Smale's YA stuff, and this is a more complex and nuanced approach and style, which is nice, but the underlying themes of the book made it feel like it was hitting the beats of a YA novel, and left me feeling slightly unsatisfied. A mixed bag, I just think it didn't hit the right notes for me, but there is so much good in this, I know others will absolutely love it, and it's definitely a me issue, not a book issue, that made it not jive with me.

2.5 stars rounded up

The premise of this book was fantastic - a woman gets dumped and loses her job in the same day, and then realises she has the ability to travel back in time and try and fix things. While I enjoyed some parts, overall this book didn’t quite work for me.

I enjoyed the writing style and found myself laughing out loud at some parts. However, the time travel aspect is never explained, and I found the constant jumping around and going backwards and forwards in time really confusing. Cassandra kept forgetting what had happened or hadn’t happened on the current timeline, and frankly it was exhausting trying to keep up with it all.

There are lots of mentions of Greek mythology in this book, which I found really random and quite jarring. We find out the reason Cassandra loves Greek mythology so much, but I still think it was mentioned far too much and pulled me out of the story.

I really love when I see a neurodivergent characters in books, but I unfortunately didn’t love Cassandra as a character. On one page she would be endearing and relatable, and on the next she would do something that really frustrated me.

I also didn’t love the romance, and although there are other relationships explored in the story, I wish there hadn’t been quite so much time spent on the romantic relationship. I really enjoyed seeing Cassandra mend the relationships that really mattered.

The ending was quite disappointing, felt anti climactic and made the whole book feel a bit redundant. However, I felt that Cassandra ended up where she needed to be in the end.

Thankyou to NetGalley and the publisher for an eARC in exchange for an honest review.

Cassie has been fired and dumped all on the same day. Feeling totally overwhelmed she experiences a blackout, something she's lived through before. Life has felt overwhelming all too many times, but something is different this time. Time has rewound. Realising she may just be able to keep rewinding until she undoes the firing and dumping, it feels like a gift. Until it doesn't. She realises she's trying to undo herself.

Cassie has always been told she is weird, unlikeable, rude. She finds people and life confusing but she sees the colours of emotion and feels their effects.

It turns out her time travelling capabilities are in fact a gift, they have made her realise she doesn't have to change to fit into the world, she just has to be herself unapologetically.

This was a wonderfully feel good story, it's sad at times, it's funny and it's inspiring. I loved every single word.