Operation Do-Over
Operation Do-Over
There’s a click, and the room is flooded with light, momentarily blinding me. When I’m finally able to blink myself back into focus, I recognize the science lab. Only – it’s the middle school science lab! What am I doing there? I haven’t been in the middle school in years!
Several other sleeping bags dot the floor, with middle-school kids in them. This is some kind of sleepover! And there are two masked invaders, laughing diabolically and running for the door. At last, their handiwork begins to appear amid the group – hands placed in bowls of water, magic-marker moustaches drawn on upper lips. Words like NERD, DWEED, and LOSER decorate foreheads. Random pieces of lab equipment have been knocked everywhere. A cracked beaker oozes bubbling chemicals onto the tiles. I spot the plastic bottle beside me, still spewing liquid. Hydrogen peroxide.
That’s when I see Mrs. Nekomis at the light switch, trying in vain to intercept the intruders as they blast out the door. I’m overcome with regret at the sight of her – until I suddenly realize that she’s totally unmarked by her tumble down the stairs. What happened to the scrapes and bruises? Three days ago, the science teacher looked like she lost a fight with a Bengal tiger! Now she’s totally fine! Nobody heals that fast! She even seems younger. And her hair is longer –
“Mrs. Nekomis?” My voice is still higher, wrong.
She stares at me. “Who’s Mrs. Nekomis?”
“You are!”
Her attention shifts from the two disappearing intruders to me. “Mason, are you all right? You’re spitting foam!”
“They poured hydrogen peroxide in my mouth!” I complain in that voice – almost a little-kid voice.
The teacher drags me over to the sink so I can rinse my mouth out with water. When I catch my reflection in the mirrored wall, it practically stops my heart.
It’s not me!
No, it is me- Mason Rolle. But it’s not me now.
It’s me from middle school!
Operation Do-Over follows the classic pattern of a magical do-over story – Mason Rolle, high school senior with a promising future, has just been suspended from high school, and all because, when he was 12, he and his (former) best friend, Ty, had a falling out over a girl. What if Mason could go back, knowing what he does now, and do it again? He gets to find out after waking up in his 12-year-old body with all the knowledge of just how wrong his life goes the first time around.
Mason and Ty are inseparable best friends who are quickly befriended by Ava, a transfer student from New York City. Instead of gravitating to the “cool kids”, Ava chooses to befriend Mason and Ty, both of whom quickly develop crushes on her. The friends take a classic “friends-before-girls” pact, but, the night of the Harvest Festival Mason, breaks it, shattering his and Ty’s friendship for good.
While Mason knows what happened on his first time through seventh grade, the choices he makes this second time around are also a little suspect. To avoid any drama with Ava, he chooses to try to stay away from her, a choice which ends up pushing Ty away as well. Mason is behaving out of character, joining the football team, choosing not to partner with Ty on a science fair project (for the first time ever), and this different Mason just isn’t the same one who was Ty’s best friend. Beyond that, Mason’s plan isn’t working – no matter how much he tries to stay away from Ava, she is having none of it. As the Harvest Festival looms closer, Mason does everything he can to steer his life onto a new path, desperate to land in a different future than the one he left behind.
Operation Do-Over is an engaging page-turner, full of comic moments as Mason does his best to re-live a better version of the seventh grade. The lack of clear relationship between Mason’s do-over and the ending of the novel leaves more questions than answers, but, overall, it is a happy ending. This weakness in plotting will likely be overcome for most readers through the likeable cast, well-paced story, and relatable themes throughout the book. At its core, this book is about finding unknown strengths and skills and how to use these to become the best version of yourself, a theme that will appeal to many young readers. Operation Do-Over will likely appeal to a variety of readers, but especially those interested in romantic plots, science, and time-travel stories. The characters generally read as white, and heterosexual romance is the focus of the plot without any queer representation.
Susie Wilson is the Data Services Librarian at the University of Northern British Columbia where she supports all aspects of data use in the academic setting. She currently resides in Prince George, British Columbia.