Lost in Time

I think with time travel stories, there's only so many different twists people can come up with and it's evident in Lost in Time, because the main twist has already been done before and if you know enough time travel stories, can probably figure it out. However, the lynchpin of the conclusion, the final “twist,” I think I've seen done in time travel stories, but not the way it's done here, and gives it a very satisfying ending. Given that, I think this book is a worthwhile addition to the time travel genre. And personally just because I love time travel stories, this book was very entertaining to me and I was very invested in seeing how it all wrapped up.

My only gripe with the book is that the marketing is pretty misleading and the actual book is very different than what I expected. You're lead to believe that the time traveling to the past is very important, and that dinosaurs and everything would be a large part of the book but they really aren't. In fact you're also led to believe that Sam is the main character of the book but he really isn't. There's a line in the book's description that says "But he can't give up, because he has to save his family who are 200 million years in the future" which makes you think he would do something to save his family somehow. But in fact it's him who gets saved by Adeline, the true main character of the book. Sam doesn't really contribute to the plot at all so his time in the past is largely irrelevant. Everything about the marketing makes you think it's super important, that Sam contributes significantly, but it's Adeline the story revolves around and the present timeline that's relevant. I am not sure if this was done on purpose to hide the twist, but it was just strange having this disconnect between the description of the book and the reality.