scijessreads

A note on ratings and opinions: I don’t set out to not like a book. I honestly try to only request ARCs that I think I’ll love. But sometimes, what I end up reading just does not work for me. I will always give credit for writing and ideas, but everyone is an individual in what actually works for them as a story that speaks to them as a reader. This is a book that I can see the effort in, and appreciate what was attempted. But it did not land for me. I try to point out below where/who I think it might work for because while this was not my sort of book in the end, I can see that it may be very much right for someone else. But I have to be honest as to how I felt about this book as a reader.

Oh, I really wanted to unreservedly like this book. It had all the tropes/ideas that normally speak to me: time travel, saving the world, multiple timelines/alternate versions of reality, and fate vs. free will… In the end, I spent more time trying to figure out the mechanisms of the timeline changes, how the technology even worked, and being distracted by the “futuristic” names for things than I did being engrossed by the story. And the characters never felt real and whole. It almost felt as if I were observing from a distance, being told things rather than being able to discover them in the actions of the plot or the people. I get that the disjointed, abrupt nature served the conceit of the timeline changes, but it made it hard to settle in and get into a rhythm with the story.

There were the makings of a great narrative about technology and choice and turning lives and data into corporate profit (even more than is done in the present day). So many threads to explore, and yet nothing seemed to stick long enough to make an impression. Even the love story felt jagged and unfinished. To a degree, I think this was meant to happen, but it still felt very much unresolved. There were so many unanswered questions, and plot threads left unraveled, that the book was more underwhelming than the premise set it up to be.

If you are a lover of alternate timelines and technology glitches, there is enough here to be intriguing. However, I wish it were constructed in a less jumbled manner and with more (or at least equal) emphasis on how the technology worked as much as there was on Nev and her complicated relationships with her family and Airin. Because it was the technology that set up the conceit of the time glitch, from which everything else seemed to spiral.

*I received a free ARC from NetGalley and the publisher to read and review. All opinions are my own.