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time travel

Book Review: “TimeBomb” by Scott K. Andrews

*NO SPOILERS REVIEW*


Title: TimeBomb

Author: Scott K. Andrews

Published: October 9th, 2014

Publisher: Hodder & Stoughton

Find the Author: Goodreads


I received this for review from Hodder for review. As always, my reviews are fair and un-bias.




New York City, 2141: Yojana Patel throws herself off a skyscraper, but never hits the ground.

Cornwall, 1640: gentle young Dora Predennick, newly come to Sweetclover Hall to work, discovers a badly-burnt woman at the bottom of a flight of stairs. When she reaches out to comfort the dying woman, she’s knocked unconscious, only to wake, centuries later, in empty laboratory room.

On a rainy night in present-day Cornwall, seventeen-year-old Kaz Cecka sneaks into the long-abandoned Sweetclover Hall, determined to secure a dry place to sleep. Instead he finds a frightened housemaid who believes Charles I is king and an angry girl who claims to come from the future.

Thrust into the centre of an adventure that spans millennia, Dora, Kaz and Jana must learn to harness powers they barely understand to escape not only villainous Lord Sweetclover but the forces of a fanatical army… all the while staying one step ahead of a mysterious woman known only as Quil.

Time travel novels are becoming something brand new on my shelf, not to mention already taking over so much space over the other genres. Scott K. Andrews novel is heavy on the time-travel – in an amazing way – and the time spaces that the book covers are propelled into the past and future at the strike of a match. So I was definitely eager to get started on a new thrilling adventure. 
There’s Jana, a girl from New York in 2141 who gets pulled to the present day after she jumps off the top of a skyscraper, Dora; a young servant who finds herself pulled forward in time when she tries to help a dying woman who is severely hurt at the place she works, and then there’s Kaz; a young boy that finds both of them where Dora works. They all have different outlooks on what the world is at their current “times” they existed, like who was king and what the future and past is. They wonder why they were drawn together, but soon find themselves delving deep into a complex and mysterious world. Knowing they can only do this together, they band together to uncover the truth of what brought them to the same time and why. 
TimeBomb was a fast-paced, astounding novel that races in time, weaving into mystery and what lies within time itself. As the first book in a trilogy (yay!), we aren’t given all the answers just yet so some things were left a little complex, but that’s what I love about it – there’s still so much to the story that is out there and I’m excited to learn what this means for the characters. My favourite character was Jana who stood out to me a little more than the other characters and I felt like I connected with her more than Dora or Kaz, although they were each in turn interesting and far from standard characters. TimeBomb was filled with enigmatic, thrilling parts and I wasn’t bored at all reading it – my attention was fixed on the rushes through time and the fast-paced action that followed. 
Overall, TimeBomb is a novel you don’t want to miss, time-travel fans. It’ll leave you wanting to race through time to read the whole trilogy before it’s out. 
       

Time-travel fans and dystopia fans will love this change of genre!


What did you think of TimeBomb?

Who was your favourite character?

Let me know in the comments!

happy reading!
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Book Review: “The Here And Now” by Ann Brashares


*NO SPOILERS REVIEW*


Title: The Here And Now

Author: Ann Brashares

Published: Janurary 1st, 2015

Publisher: Hodder Children’s Books

Find the Author: Goodreads


I received this for review from Hodder for review. As always, my reviews are fair and un-bias.

TIME TRAVEL AND FORBIDDEN ROMANCE FROM THE BEST SELLING AUTHOR OF THE SISTERHOOD OF THE TRAVELLING PANTS

Thrilling, exhilarating, haunting and heartbreaking, The Here and Now is a twenty-first-century take of an impossible romance.
There are rules.
Never reveal where you’re from. Never be intimate with anyone outside the community. And never interfere with history.
Seventeen-year-old Prenna James emigrated to New York when she was twelve. But Prenna didn’t come from a different country, she came from a different time – a future where a mosquito-borne illness has mutated into a pandemic, killing millions and leaving the world in ruins.
Prenna and the others who escaped to the present day must follow a strict set of rules. Prenna does as she’s told, believing she can help prevent the plague that will one day ravage the earth and take the lives of her younger brothers. But everything changes when she falls for Ethan.
She might be able to save the world … if she lets go of the one thing she’s found to hold on to.


The Sisterhood of The Travelling Pants series are some of my favourite literary gems from before I started blogging and the movies (including a third in the making!) are some of my most favourite ones to watch with my friends when we marathon fun, girly films. So taking all this into account, I was so excited to start what Ann Brashares had written next – and considering it was a time-travelling novel – it looked like it was exactly perfect for what I love to read. 

Prenna, the narrator and our main character, is a seventeen-year-old normal girl. Except when she was twelve, she emigrated to New York . . . from the future. In her future, Prenna’s time had become deadly. A mosquito-borne illness had become extremely deadly, spreading like wildfire, killing millions of people, leaving her time in great danger. Not everyone could escape from the future, but those who did into the present day banded together, following a set list of rules not to be broken, including never revealing where they are from and they can never interfere with history, let alone be involved intimately with anyone outside their community. This gave an intense, dramatic feel to the book and even though I hadn’t really connected with Prenna at this point, I still loved the uniqueness of the futuristic world Ann had created. 

As the novel grows, we start to see the romantic connection between Prenna and Ethan who have a sort of prior history to their actual first meeting. Still, Prenna does as she’s told by the community believing she can make a difference to the world. But with Ethan, it complicates things for her and the choices she thought she had already made to save the world she loves. It’s a tragic love between them and was very much a wrong place, wrong time and forbidden type of romance that’s as exciting as it was moving and saddening. I didn’t connect with Prenna until near the end where I could see many sides of her and completely understand her character, but when I did, I really saw how much her character had developed and that’s a thing I love about novels like this. 

Equal parts drama, romance and time-travel, The Here And Now was an absorbing, Sci-Fi novel that even though it was short at under 300 pages, was engaging and fateful simultaneously. For anyone who has read Ann’s previous writing and loves the way she creates memorable characters and plots, this is definitely for you. 

   


 Fans of Ann’s Sisterhood series and for Sci-Fi fans looking for a sweet and memorable quick read. 

 What did you think of The Here And Now? 

Did you think it lived up her Sisterhood series?

Let me know in the comments!

happy reading!
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Book Review: “Pivot Point” by Kasie West

Title: Pivot Point

Author: Kasie West

Genre: Young Adult -Dystopia/Time Travel

Release Date:  February 12th 2013 (USA) / 16th January 2014 (UK)

Published by: Harper Teen / HarperCollins 360

With thanks to HarperCollins 360 for the copy of the novel! My review is as always, non-bias and fair.

 

AUTHOR SITE | TWITTER | GOODREADS

 

 Knowing the outcome doesn’t always make a choice easier . . .

Addison
Coleman’s life is one big “What if?” As a Searcher, whenever Addie is
faced with a choice, she can look into the future and see both outcomes.
It’s the ultimate insurance plan against disaster. Or so she thought.
When Addie’s parents ambush her with the news of their divorce, she has
to pick who she wants to live with—her father, who is leaving the
paranormal compound to live among the “Norms,” or her mother, who is
staying in the life Addie has always known. Addie loves her life just as
it is, so her answer should be easy. One Search six weeks into the
future proves it’s not.

In one potential future, Addie is
adjusting to life outside the Compound as the new girl in a Norm high
school where she meets Trevor, a cute, sensitive artist who understands
her. In the other path, Addie is being pursued by the hottest guy in
school—but she never wanted to be a quarterback’s girlfriend. When
Addie’s father is asked to consult on a murder in the Compound, she’s
unwittingly drawn into a dangerous game that threatens everything she
holds dear. With love and loss in both lives, it all comes down to which
reality she’s willing to live through . . . and who she can’t live
without.

 I had my eyes on Pivot Point for such a long time and as a fan of Kasie’s The Distance Between Us, I was going into reading with a completely open mind. I had heard so much praise about how Kasie effortlessly glides from genre to genre, so I was completely over the moon to get a copy from HarperCollins 360!

Addie Coleman isn’t a ordinary
teenager, and those around her aren’t quite “regular” either. She is
a Searcher, which means that she can see the both conclusions of a
choice she wants to make, and can choose whichever outlook is better suited to
that choice. So when her parents spring on her that they’re getting a divorce,
Addie knows her gift will truly be an asset.


The choices Addie is faced with
aren’t quite so simple, as she thought. She can either move out of the Compound
where she and the others alike her abilities live and leave with her father, to
go to the “Norm” world or stay with her Mother in the Compound
where she has lived all her life. But it’s not straight forward, and
both choices have outcomes so equally complicated than she had planned. She
thought that it would be simple, at first. She’s spent her whole life in the
Compound with her family and had an amazing best friend; Laila, so she would
stay there. But when Addie does a search into the future, she is faced with the
idea that maybe what’s ideal isn’t always what we want and that sometimes,
knowing the final result isn’t always easier.


Pivot Point could not have been an ounce better. There are only a handful of books
that I can truly say I devoured from start to finish with a bond to the
characters and plot. It’s also one of the few that I could see play out with
the descriptions in my mind, playing along with the plot, which is the one
thing that takes the novel from liked to loved.


  The concept for Pivot Point was outstanding, flawless even. The
abilities that those that live in the Compound have are so different to the
supernatural beings we see in usual YA books, with Addie’s power and also for
example, her best friend Laila, can erase certain parts of someone’s memory or
a memory in itself. 


It was truly refreshing to see a
piece of Young Adult literature come to life in a way that hasn’t been done
before. It also has some moving subjects such as the divorce aspect that Addie
deals with, and touches on some of those emotions that a teenager would go
through during that time.


 A TOP favourite thing of
mine was the characters, that were so likeable that you’ll want them to be your
friends or fellow love interest, like Trevor or Duke, Addie’s interests in
either outcomes. There were no “insta-love” moments, which are sometimes
unrealistic, so with it being a slower and gradual connection, which made it
all the more loveable. If I had to pick who I’d like Addie to be with in
general...I would have picked Trevor, because I think they had a more
enthralling connection and he was a ton more likeable character in my opinion
and there was just a little extra something about them that felt genuine and
true.


Overall, Pivot Point is
not to be missed. A mix of paranormal worldly events mixed with a
“norm” world and it’s equal dilemmas, not to mention it’s downright
hilarious humour, Kasie West has written a light, addictive and phenomenal
novel packed with all the ingredients for a perfect YA novel. 


And THAT ending! I am on the edge
of my seat for the sequel; Split Second, due out in 2014! How amazing
will it be?! 5 stars!

 

 

 

“Because an illusion is an illusion. Reality always exists despite the facade.”

 

 

Have you read Pivot Point?
What did you think?
Tell me in the comments or at @LittleMemoirs on twitter!
happy reading!
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