Blog Tour and Review: The Undoing of Arlo Knott – Heather Child

Welcome back!

I’m so pleased to have been invited to participate in the blog tour for The Undoing of Arlo Knott. Don’t forget to check out the blog tour schedule for other wonderful posts on this tour.

Title: The Undoing of Arlo Knott
Author: Heather Child
Publication date: Out now
Publisher: Orbit

Synopsis

Arlo Knott discovers he has an unusual skill…
He can reverse his last action – undo any mistake.
But second chances aren’t all they’re cracked up to be. As wonderful as his new life is, an accident in Arlo’s traumatic childhood still haunts him and the temptation to undo, undo and keep undoing could be too much to resist.

Review

Imagine having the ability to turn back time on a whim. Re-do that job interview. Take back what you said in an argument. Get up when your alarm went off rather than snoozing for 30 minutes, making you late.

Arlo Knott can do all of those things. But what he can’t undo is a split-second decision in his childhood. And now his beloved mother is dead, and his sister seems, outwardly, void of emotion. So Arlo does what he thinks is best. He lives the same moments, hours, days, weeks, over and over until he gets them “right”.

The Undoing of Arlo Knott is a different concept to many time-travel stories as it focuses on the impact of time-travel rather than the objective. What Arlo thinks he is achieving is being a hero, the perfect partner, an outstanding employee – but he’s actually playing with people’s lives without their knowledge.

I loved that this book looks at multi-verse theory without getting bogged down in it, and I also enjoyed seeing what would happen (hypothetically speaking) if someone like me had the same abilities as Arlo.

What I struggled with was that I strongly disliked Arlo as a character. Now, I usually enjoy reading unlikable characters, but Arlo drove me nuts. He’s so conceited and I couldn’t understand why he wasn’t learning from his mistakes (despite that being part of the story… I know, I know).

The more I thought about it the more I felt that what I should be feeling for Arlo is pity, and on reflection, he is not a bad person but his moral compass is completely skewed because he hasn’t had the guidance in life that he so desperately needed from parental figures.

A totally different read, constantly twisting and turning – perfect for Summer holidays.

I would highly recommend The Undoing of Arlo Knott for book groups so you can ask the question: “How would you behave differently if you had the same ability as Arlo – do you think you’d make rational decisions or take the same path?”.

You’ll love The Undoing of Arlo Knott if you enjoyed:

Thanks to Orbit for providing a copy of this book in exchange for an honest review.