Book Review: Tempest by Julie Cross

Tempest: A Novel by Julie Cross
Publisher: Macmillan Audio
Publication date: January 2012
Length: 10 hrs, 51 min
Source: Audiobook received from publisher
For: Review
Series: Tempest, Book 1

In the present, Jackson Meyer is a college student with a fabulous girlfriend, who doesn't yet know about his ability to travel back in time.  But when something horrible happens to Holly, Jackson panics and travels back in time two years - and is unable to return.  He desperately tries to return to Holly, but also wants to focus on his current "present," until his future comes looking for him in his past.

Things I Liked:
This was definitely a fun, twisted, sometimes complicated time travel story.  I really liked the time travel parts and how the way Jackson could move in time was explained, especially when he manages to get stuck.  I thought it was clever and smart and definitely had some unique and fun twists on the time travel theme.  The book opened up lots of room for sequels, so we can figure out just what is going on - which is good, because there are a LOT of loose ends that are left dangling.  I kind of hope Courtney plays a role in the future books.  The narrator, Matthew Brown, did a pretty good job on the voices - definitely on the teen boy voices, slightly less so on the teen girl voices.  But all around I enjoyed the listen.  I'll be interested to see what happens next.

Things I Didn't Like:
Honestly, the love story of Holly and Jackson didn't do much for me.  I hated Jackson, because he acted a little too much like a teenage boy - a selfish, hormonal jerk that really treated Holly (and Adam and his dad to some extent) like dirt.  I couldn't figure out what Holly saw in him and I just really didn't care much for the romance.  It made it hard to be fully invested in the story, because that was the story.  Also, there were a LOT of things that weren't explained well at all.  Some of the time it was clear, but sometimes it was too vague and left me with a sense of some holes in the way the time traveling was set up.  Definitely the series has a lot of potential for fun, but I wished this book was less focused on Holly and Jackson and more on Jackson's abilities and his history and future.  If you liked Time Traveler's Wife (which I didn't for some of the same reasons), I think you'll like this one.

Read-alikes:
The Time Traveler's Wife by Audrey Niffenegger
A bit like Hourglass by Myra McEntire and The Hourglass Door by Lisa Mangum

BOOK CONTENT RATINGS:
s-factor: !@$% 
plenty with quite a few f-bombs

mrg-factor: XX
not in a lot of descriptive detail, but it happens

v-factor: ->->
there's some action violence and shooting

Overall rating: ***

What's your favorite time travel story?

 

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