Once and Again

At birth, the women of the Novak family are given a silver ticket that allows them one chance to turn back time, in this disappointing tale from Serle (In Five Years). When Lauren’s mother was 15, she used hers to save Lauren’s father from a deadly car crash, and her mother has worried about his ailing heart ever since, knowing she’s used up her only chance to save him. Lauren, who grew up surfing with her father near their modest Malibu house, is 37 and dealing with expensive and grueling fertility treatments. While Leo, her husband of three years, spends a summer in New York City to advance his film career, Lauren visits her childhood home with her parents and grandmother. There, she takes up surfing again and rekindles a romance with an old flame, Stone. Feeling disconnected from herself and pushing Leo further away, she wonders if perhaps there is a past choice she can undo. The author introduces heavy themes of family bonds and fertility struggles, but the story is undone by clunky characterizations—especially that of Stone, who’s described as “humble” and vain in the span of a paragraph—and by an ending that feels unfaithful to the plot. Serle’s clever concept doesn’t quite translate into magic on the page. Agent: Erin Malone, WME. (Mar.)