Book: Seconds to Spare
By: Rachel Reiss
Published: May 12, 2026
Publisher: Wednesday Books
Genre: YA Thriller
Pages: 320
Setting: Hawaii/Plane
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About Seconds to Spare
Evelyn is 18 years old and is trapped in what feels like a never-ending nightmare. She’s on Aloha Airlines Flight 1333 and is stuck in a 28-minute time loop that repeats over and over again. In every loop 4 things happen every time.
- The internet goes out, and the pilot warns of upcoming turbulence.
- There are 5 minutes of moderate shaking.
- The woman in the very last row collapses.
- The plane begins to nose dive.
When Orion, who has been asleep the entire time, wakes, the cycle breaks. Now they have to find answers before they die.
What I thought
So, I got an advance copy of Seconds to Spare a while back because the premise caught my attention. I have always really liked books that revolve around time loops. I don’t know what it is about books and movies that have this that always manages to get me hooked.
My main issue with the story, and what confused me at the start, is that it basically jumps right into the main character already being in the loop for a couple hundred loops. I wish we had gotten the start of it and gone through her initial reaction to everything instead of being put right in the middle of it.
The story is well paced for the most part, even though there are some slow parts that I skimmed through. I kind of wish we had gotten a little bit of reasoning for the time loop because what happens at the end doesn’t feel like a good reason to go through a time loop. I guess I wish there was more reasoning than just the possibility of that being a reason, because we’re never “really” told.
It feels like we typically get more of a reason in other books and movies. Or the reasoning we get seems a lot better in other stories and isn’t kind of a cop-out, like I feel like this one is.
Overall, the story is pretty good though, and I still wound up liking it.
If you want more time loop stories, then you can find them here.