Timebound

Amongst the crop of YA-Teen-Heroine-Saves-the-World trilogies (and I assume that this is the start of a trilogy) this novel stands out for have consistent internal logic. The writing moves quickly and draws the reader into the story. I enjoyed the attention to details as various characters' actions reverberated through time and the memories and situations of other characters are affected. I would recommend this novel to anyone looking for YA science fiction. However, I did not feel that the Audible reader did justice to the material. Especially during conversations her phrasing and intonations did not sound like people talking and failed to put stress on words and syllables where it would naturally occur. Perhaps she did not have the opportunity to read the work before it was recorded (though I doubt that very much), but the recording indicates a lack of preparation to me. I recommend skipping the audio version and reading this book with your own eyes.

Short Review: I thought this was a very good young adult time travel novel. It was the 2013 Amazon Breakthrough Novel Contest winner and this shows in part how much Amazon is doing to shake up the book world. Not only is the published by Amazon, but it was given away free to Amazon Prime members in December (a month before official release.) And this really worked for them, there are more than 1300 reviews just a month after release and more than 1200 of them are 4 or 5 star reviews.

It is also clearly the set up for a series, although the series next book release date is not available.

My full review is on my blog at http://bookwi.se/timebound/

“Like most people, I'm used to moving through time in a single direction - forward.”

Okay, so I'll admit it: I love time travel plotlines. With this little sub-genre at work, I'm predisposed to like the book. I love all the conundrums and tense problems that come up and the discussions of alternate timelines and what, exactly, that means.

Well, this one kicks off in superb fashion with Kate stuck in 1800's Chicago and bemoaning the fact that the clothing of the era makes escape much more difficult than converse and shorts would.

“I've kind of gotten used to things not making sense. I've decided the only way to stay sane is to just roll with the punches.”

Kate's a lot of fun. She handles herself well, she's pretty mature, but that doesn't mean she doesn't act like a teenager sometimes. And I love the fact that her and her best friend take karate classes together.

Kate easily carries the book for me, which is great, because this is definitely one of those books that if you don't like the main character, you probably won't like the story.

The rest of the characters are really great too, though. I love how Kate has a healthy, normal relationship with her divorced parents - and she even splits her time between them. Her grandmother is...hard to pin down at first, but very interesting. I already mentioned the best friend - who seriously needed to be in here more!

There is also an overly complicated borderline-insta-love-triangle going on here. Adding alternate versions of these characters, as that's what happens when the timeline shifts, and the fact that some of them can remember the past that didn't actually happen, makes it really complicated as to feeling and emotion.

He reminded me of a big friendly puppy and I wasn't sure how I was going to shake him.

The good news is that I like both the guys enough that I didn't get particularly frustrated with the romance. (However, there was a point towards the middle of the book that seemed to want to focus solely on the romance that was drag-y to me.) The guys themselves are very different, though they are both nice guys with no of that ‘he's such a bad boy' that seems to always crop up.

I'm not being melodramatic here. Having your existence completely erased has to qualify as a life-changing event, by anyone's definition.

As I said before, I love the way the plot was handled, though it seemed occasionally that it took longer to get from one point to another than was strictly necessary. The time travel didn't seem particularly confusing, but it was just complicated that it took a little thought to follow the reasoning.

In truth, I could totally understand why some of the characters claimed it was giving them a headache, because I can just imagine how complicated it would be for someone that it was actually happening to.

Also, the research the author put into the historical aspect was wonderful and - though I'm not particularly knowledgeable about this part of history - I didn't spot any inconsistencies that couldn't be explained by time travel.

(Originally posted on my blog: pagesofstarlight.blogspot.com)