Title: RE: Trailer Trash
Author: FortySixtyFour
Rating: M
Genre: Time travel, Slice of life, Comedy
Status: WIP
Chapters: 14
Fandom: Original Fiction
Summary:
In the year 2045, an MRI mishap transmits Tabitha Moore's mind back into her body in the past. Now it's 1998, she's thirteen years old, and she has to confront her long, miserable lifetime of failures—and once again being trailer trash—all over again.

...Or does she?

Link: https://www.royalroad.com/fiction/21322/re-trailer-trash

It is pretty much what it say on the tin. Tabitha goes back in her terrible youth, and is gripped by a need to improve her life this time around. The only thing that's not completely realistic is the time travel.
There is conflict. But not the world ending kind. For example her mother doesn't know how to handle her much changed daughter. Tabitha getting in shape and starting to look pretty, painfully reminds her mother of her own youthful potential that was "taken away" from her by having a daughter too early in life.

A few points on what makes this worth reading:
It is very well written. Few if any grammatical errors, and a way with words that drags you in.
The characters are deep and interesting and they feel like real people.
This story handles the do-over fantasy in an interesting and realistic way.

I wouldn't usually read something like this, but it's is highly rated on Royalroad, so I tried it out. I was instantly captured by the story, and now a few hours later I've read the whole thing. Sadly it's not all that long yet.

I would probably rate this 4,5/5 rounded down to 4/5. It's not perfect, but it is very good, and I look forward to reading more.

 

Real life Peggy Sue? Yes fucking please.

I have high hopes. Will check back in with a review on the other side.

Edit: One chapter down. And it's alright, so far. The protagonist has gotten to grips with the time travel in a pleasingly prompt fashion with none of the usual bitching or moaning. She's optimistic about being able to improve her life, but also frustrated by having to revisit the bad parts of her youth. It strikes a good balance.

And yet...the mention of one of my most detested cliches has shown up. The protagonist's dream is to become a fantasy writer. Hoo boy. So this is a self-insert rather than an original story. Still has potential, but just downgraded in my estimation.

Provisional 4/5 because the author seems competent but not particularly inspired.

Edit 2 for chapter 2: The protagonist - Tabitha, whose name I despise, speaks like a robot. I see what the author is trying to do in adopting the formal speech patterns of an older woman, but this just doesn't fit. I'll give them a pass on not accounting for the development of language and the way that older people tend to stick to the linguistic habits developed in their youth, that's fair enough. Play up the old lady schtick for effect if you like. But Tabitha reads like an autist has swallowed a thesaurus rather than an adult causing a child to act precocious.

I'm enjoying the fat trailer trash mother's sheer outrage and disgust at her child wanting to eat healthily and tidy her house, though.

 

3.5/5

Like Otters I really wanted to like this just because of the premise and how cool a peggy sue was, but honestly the story so far isn't that interesting. I might keep up with it but the chapter releases are pretty sporadic as well. I still like the direction of it in general but imo I'd prefer more fantasy/sci-fi from it, I didn't like the low-key tone of it.

I'm really liking the mom drama so far after we've heard more of her backstory, also the annoying dialogue with the parents died out after a few chapters and got more realistic so that was a plus. I really liked the first few chapters when she was an ugly duckling better then her being overly-pretty later on because the conflict got more more but I did like how

Spoiler

the time traveler telling dear friends their from the future was subverted when she told the artist and the other girl thought she was crazy, along with how she's forgotten stuff like 9/11

Writing this down I actually liked this more then I thought so I'll round it up to 4/5.

 

To reiterate Otters her character voice is jarring. She says she has an English Degree so she refuses to speak like she once did. Well, I know quite a few English degrees and not a single one of them speaks like a high class lady from the 1890s with proper elocution and diction. If they did I’d all make fun of them. Does the dialogue get any better or does she continue talking like a robot?


I also have a hard time believing she can’t remember certain things that would benefit her. It sounds like the author handwaving away things to explain why she doesn’t go make herself rich. You’re telling me you don’t remember Google, Amazon, Facebook, Apple and so on to invest in? Like, you want a better life the second time maybe go learn to code and get rich in Silicon Valley instead of rewriting your failed fantasy trilogy.

 

Yes it gets better. At least I think so. Tabitha keeps using that way of speaking when talking to her mom, but my feeling is that it is something she does to get on her moms nerves later on.

She does actually mention Google as a company to invest in later on. I don't really think the other companies makes sense to even think about at this time, since the didn't exist or the explosive growth would happen some years later.
Also she'll probably have to wait a few years, to even be able to invest in anything.
Even with all that said, I do agree that early on the author underestimates how much you probably could remember, even almost 50 years in the past.

 

The best thing about this is probably also the worst.

Coming back was an accident. More than that, it happened to a nobody. There's no 'big-bad' to fight, no destiny to achieve or overcome - her goals are to avoid a shooting, stop being fat, and get her story out before market saturation.

It's a breath of fresh air in the standard 'but thou must!' average Jo stories- now that the shooting has happened, there's not really any short term story left, other than 'And Tabitha worked hard to stop being trailer trash'. But that does mean that there looks to be a loss of sense of direction and urgency, which you can see in the update schedule. And if this just turns into a story about how great and amazing Tabitha is, it'll certainly lose charm. I don't really want to read 'sixty year old woman hangs out with teenage girls and gives life advice - the novel'.

Generally, the writing's decent. The big problem is one people have already mentioned - Tabitha doesn't talk like everyone else. I could buy that she's talking like everyone else in the future does, and that she's deliberately making no effort to fit in, but this doesn't seem to be explicitly addressed. She just talks funny and ain't right, and we just go along with it.

In regards to lack of memory of the past, I can completely understand. I'm not from the US, so whilst I remember 9/11, it didn't really directly impact me or anyone I know. I could certainly point out that it happened in 2000, 2001, or 2002 because I remember what school I was in at the time, but that's it - certainly no names, times, or flight numbers. And whilst Google, Amazon, and Microsoft would certainly be worth investing in from our point of view in 2019. But she doesn't have money right now, and she's come from 2045 - our equivalent would be going back to 1970. Do you know, off of the top of your head, who would be the best company to invest in, in 1970, to gain a profit by 1975? Or bearing in mind she's legally a child so might face troubles buying and selling on the stock market, she'd have to write down/remember the best ones to invest in, in five years, to gain a profit.

Really enjoy the interactions with her mother, and looking forward to seeing where that goes.

I wasn't a fan of how quickly she goes through her beauty transformation - a summer holiday of exercise and healthy eating turns her from one of the ugliest people in school into the hottest thing anyone's ever seen? Also, her sewing skills are so amazing that people think she's buying designer clothes? I get it - protagonist powers at work, and nobody wants to read two years of hard work to become moderately attractive - but it smacks of wish fulfillment, especially alongside Tabitha's burning desire to be a published author.

Overall, decent story. I enjoyed the whole thing, and could give it a 3.something/5 easily, but I think this stands above a lot of current original online fiction, so rounding up to a 4/5

 

I don't suppose this is hosted anywhere else?

 

This just updated

 

I like the premise of this, it's not well done though. Someone dealing with their shitty childhood and repressed memories a second time through time travel is interesting. The problem is that the 'adult' speech isn't. A significant event of random chance happens anyway, so no butterfly effect which I find annoying. The coup de grace of my enjoyment of this was an old woman blushing like a schoolgirl over a schoolboy. Yikes. An adult having to deal with the hormone storm of puberty has a lot of room for entertainment, but it should be over seeing Clooney on ER or something.

 

Whaaaaaat the fuuuuuuuuck


I hate this kind of 'revelation', and whether anything happens in the next chapter or two to cement what was actually going on might cause me to drop this.

*Editing so people don't get spoilers in email alerts*

Spoiler

So either the past is a dream (boo), this whole chapter was a dream (booing intensifies), or there's actual time travel and fuckery going on (in which case, is the only point to scare the crap out of Tabitha/send her around through time?).

Whilst I hate dream chapters, I kind of hope that's actually what happened here, and we just had an almost waster chapter. Because if the whole story is a dream, or we start getting Tabby jumping around time, I'm really not sure I can be bothered to keep with this, because the plot will just go mental.

 

I actually liked this at the start but the arc dragged on and on and on and on... then finally as it comes to an end it is that stupid. It wasn't even annoying since I was too baffled to feel annoyed.

I decided to drop it then since my experience with internet fiction indicates it is better to bail the first moment you want to than keep going to be set-up for more disappointment, and no this time won't be different stop thinking it might.

However I didn't remove it from RSS feed and kinda forgot about it by next update so I ended up reading it under the notion of 'Well I think disliked events for a while, but the arc is over so might be actually interesting again'. And wow did the author surpass expectations, it is possible to do even worse but it was impressive nonetheless.

Really I keep having to be taught the lesson of dropping stories instead of sticking with them, sunken cost fallacy strikes yet again.

 

So the beginning of Book 2 is a bit of a "what the fuck" moment. I read it, and enjoyed reading it, but it's a huge divergence (almost jarringly so) from what we had in Book 1.

That said, I'll still be following it. I'm intrigued.

 

Pretty sure today's update was an April Fools' joke.

That said, I wouldn't be averse to it continuing