Regret

Regret is a major component of many of the novel’s storylines, and the novel uses its time travel premise to explore how self-reflection and personal action can help to overcome regret. Many of the characters have regrets, which time travel could potentially help them to retroactively remedy. However, the constraints surrounding the café’s time travel seem to make such remedies complicated or even impossible: “When you go back, no matter how hard you try, the present won’t change” (12). Thus, when characters travel back in time, they cannot impose retroactive changes that will alter the present. Instead, the time travel trips function more as a chance for the characters to reflect upon their past and gain new perspectives from the people in their lives. The characters are then able to take action in the present that will shape their futures in positive ways. In...