Reviews with content warning for Infidelity - The Psychology of Time Travel

This was really good, but it would have been perfect if two things had been done differently.

1. The main romance felt SO out of the blue. I don't care that it didn't feel terribly romantic as yes- it is an atypical relationship, but there was no significant build up for anything that happened which lead to me feeling no emotional connection to that plot

2. I feel as if the story could have been wrapped up a bit better. I fear Ginger didn't get a proper ending, and the end felt imperfect.

With that out of the way, here are the things I loved

- The idea of this book. The title speaks to what it is: the trials and tribulations of time travel on mental health. Such an interesting concept I haven't seen done before and I really enjoyed how it was interwoven with mystery.
- The interweaving of all the stories is so so so! interesting! Many unpredictable moments of revelation that make you want to keep going deeper into the book
- There are quite a few characters in this book, but I never once felt confused about who was who, as I often do in books with many characters. It's not confusing, which is something a lot of authors fail hard at doing.
- No one ever questions the women in this book for doing what they do based on their gender, their roles in science, or their roles in power. It's just not there in the book. It's refreshing.
- Lesbian calls herself a lesbian. Nice!
- The way time travel works here is fabulous. Theres no hang ups on paradoxes, such as the baby hitler paradox/grandfather paradox which was definitely the right choice as any hang ups on that would have taken away from the novel, in my opinion. I liked that it was just a norm to time travel, and the fact that you could not change the future or past no matter how hard you tried, as it was all pre-determined. The way people would walk around at certain ages certainly bends your brain when you think about it at first, but in the end its a relatively easy concept for the reader to grasp. 10/10 time travel universe rules

Content Warnings

saliwali's review against another edition

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adventurous challenging dark mysterious reflective relaxing sad tense medium-paced

Plot- or character-driven? A mix
Strong character development? Yes
Loveable characters? It's complicated
Diverse cast of characters? Yes
Flaws of characters a main focus? Yes

3.75

Content Warnings

maresuju's review

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adventurous emotional mysterious reflective medium-paced

Plot- or character-driven? A mix
Strong character development? No
Loveable characters? It's complicated
Diverse cast of characters? Yes
Flaws of characters a main focus? It's complicated

3.75

Content Warnings

livfaergemann's review against another edition

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mysterious reflective tense medium-paced

Plot- or character-driven? Plot
Strong character development? No
Loveable characters? It's complicated
Diverse cast of characters? Yes
Flaws of characters a main focus? Yes

4.0

Content Warnings

readwithria's review against another edition

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emotional mysterious reflective medium-paced

Plot- or character-driven? A mix
Strong character development? Yes
Loveable characters? Yes
Diverse cast of characters? Yes
Flaws of characters a main focus? No

3.75

The Psychology of Time Travel has some of the tightest writing I’ve ever read. Given that it’s a book about time travel, that was absolutely vital!

Kate Mascarenhas somehow wrote a book about a mystery that gives you all of the information you would typically get in a trial without the trial. She also writes an incredibly tight time travel system with a closed loop (my favorite kind!) and clear rules for what is and isn’t possible. The passage of information from different versions of the same person is also done very well, and I thoroughly enjoyed all of the time travel aspects of the book!

What I didn’t like as much was the Ruby timeline, specifically toward the end of the book

with her romantic relationship with Grace

It felt a bit rushed, and I wish there had been even ten more pages of development.

All in all this book was really well written, but I don’t know if I was the target reader. The first half was really hard for me to get through, but once I did I flew through the second half. I think that because there was so much set up, and so many different chronologies to follow, it made it difficult for me to get invested in the book. I think this would make a really interesting miniseries, and that the visual medium would help convey where in time we are more easily than the chapter headings do.

Unrelated to anything that’s actually related to the writing or story, but all of the characters in the book were women and seeing a STEM field full of women made me so happy!

Would I recommend this book? Yes. Will I read it again? Probably not. 3.75 stars.

Content Warnings