Oona Out of Order
A remarkably inventive novel that explores what it means to live a life fully in the moment, even if those moments are out of order. It’s New Year’s Eve 1982, and Oona Lockhart has her whole life before her. At the stroke of midnight she will turn nineteen, and the year ahead promises to be one of consequence. Should she go to London to study economics, or remain at home in Brooklyn to pursue her passion for music and be with her boyfriend? As the countdown to the New Year begins, Oona faints and awakens thirty-two years in the future in her fifty-one-year-old body. Greeted by a friendly stranger in a beautiful house she’s told is her own, Oona learns that with each passing year she will leap to another age at random. And so begins Oona Out of Order... Hopping through decades, pop culture fads, and much-needed stock tips, Oona is still a young woman on the inside but ever changing on the outside. Who will she be next year? Philanthropist? Club Kid? World traveler? Wife to a man she’s never met? Surprising, magical, and heart-wrenching, Margarita Montimore has crafted an unforgettable story about the burdens of time, the endurance of love, and the power of family.
Themes & atmosphere
What you might want to know about Oona Out of Order
The questions readers send us most often, answered without spoilers.
On the night she turns nineteen, Oona blacks out and wakes up in her own body at fifty-one. Each year she jumps to a different age, building a marriage and a self out of decades met out of order.
Yes. Oona Out of Order follows a woman who lives her life in non-linear yearly chunks, leaping forward or backward each New Year's. It is structured as a contemporary fiction take on the time-loop premise.
A film adaptation has been announced. As of 2025, the project remains in development.
Oona Out of Order was written by Margarita Montimore, published in 2020 by Flatiron Books.
Oona Out of Order is 338 pages in standard print editions, though page counts vary slightly between hardcover, paperback, and large-print formats.
At an average reading pace of about 250 words per minute, Oona Out of Order takes most readers 5 to 7 hours to finish.
Oona Out of Order is a standalone novel by Margarita Montimore, not part of a series.
Oona Out of Order is available in hardcover, paperback, ebook, and audiobook formats from Amazon, Bookshop.org, ThriftBooks, and most major bookstores.