Charlotte Sometimes is my favorite song by The Cure. I recently found out that it's based on a book of the same name (written in 1969 by Penelope Farmer), so I decided to read it to better understand the lyrics/ song.
The story involves the double life of a school girl, Charlotte, who wakes up back in time into the body of a younger girl, Claire, in the same school - back in 1918 Britain during WWI. When the girls go to sleep and wake up, they alternate every other day between the 1960s and 1918 - their bed space causes the temporal shift. They use a diary to communicate what has happened daily in each other's time as they struggle with the changes in an unfamiliar time period, relationships with peers they do not know and maintaining their own identities. Then due to a trip and extended stay at relatives in the country, Charlotte fears she may be stranded in the past after being unable to return to the bed - until the end of WWI…
