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gcampagna's review against another edition
emotional
mysterious
reflective
fast-paced
- Plot- or character-driven? Plot
- Strong character development? Yes
- Loveable characters? Yes
- Diverse cast of characters? It's complicated
- Flaws of characters a main focus? No
3.75
tronella's review against another edition
3.0
Interesting, but the writing style is not for me. Bonus nostalgia points for being set partly in places I often visited as a child. Minus points for the blowjob scene.
sch91086's review against another edition
3.0
Time Was is a quick little novella. I feel that the blurb is really misleading though, and the actual blurb on GoodReads contains a spoiler, so avoid it if you can. While this is in part Tom and Ben’s story, it’s actually more about a bookseller, Emmett, who stumbles onto their secret and becomes obsessed with finding them.
Much less exciting right? The buddies I was reading this with all agreed- we wanted more about Tom and Ben! The romance was lovely, but it was maybe 25% of the whole book.
The writing was sharp, concise, and atmospheric, as is typical of McDonald. He’s very good at forcing you to read between the lines, so at times I became a little lost. Especially the opening, which talks about digging around in a dumpster in LeBoutins for books, because I was still under the impression we were in WWII (thank you misleading blurb) and some of the POV/setting shifts weren’t incredibly obvious to me in those first couple chapters.
Some of the buddies I read with guessed the ending (I did not) and were disappointed with that. There’s also the time travel aspect, which was not explained at all, highly unscientific, and left us confused.
In the end, the writing was great, and romance was wonderful, but I was left wanting more. I had questions I wanted answered, () and was sometimes bored with the main narrative. If you’re interested in reading McDonald, while this won’t take too much of your time, I’d still recommend starting with New Moon. I appreciate McDonald’s versatility, but this didn’t feel like a great representation of his ability.
Much less exciting right? The buddies I was reading this with all agreed- we wanted more about Tom and Ben! The romance was lovely, but it was maybe 25% of the whole book.
The writing was sharp, concise, and atmospheric, as is typical of McDonald. He’s very good at forcing you to read between the lines, so at times I became a little lost. Especially the opening, which talks about digging around in a dumpster in LeBoutins for books, because I was still under the impression we were in WWII (thank you misleading blurb) and some of the POV/setting shifts weren’t incredibly obvious to me in those first couple chapters.
Some of the buddies I read with guessed the ending (I did not) and were disappointed with that. There’s also the time travel aspect, which was not explained at all, highly unscientific, and left us confused.
In the end, the writing was great, and romance was wonderful, but I was left wanting more. I had questions I wanted answered, (
Spoiler
Why did time travel always dump them out around the wars? Or did it not always dump them there and that was just when they were photographed? How do Tom and Ben find each other?nithou's review against another edition
4.0
Très bonne découverte grâce à un blogueur SFF, premier livre des éditions Belial pour moi. Une histoire de voyages temporels, d’amour aussi à travers les années et de mystères littéraires. C’est prenant et ça se dévore à pleine vitesse, je recommande !
tosca2005's review against another edition
adventurous
mysterious
slow-paced
- Plot- or character-driven? Plot
- Strong character development? No
- Loveable characters? It's complicated
- Diverse cast of characters? No
- Flaws of characters a main focus? No
3.0
bookaneer's review against another edition
3.0
Beautiful and poetic. Even though if won the British SF Award recently, it does not have lots of SF in it. Yet, it does not really matter. I actually wanted more romance and less research story since it gave me that The English Patient and Atonement vibes, you know.
I would have rated it higher if I was not able to guess the ending. *shrugs*
I would have rated it higher if I was not able to guess the ending. *shrugs*
liesljrowe's review against another edition
4.0
Popsugar Challenge #23 - A book about time travel
Oh wow. Any book about someone trying to solve a historical mystery is going to have my attention. Ditto with digging through archives and using books as dead-drops. So I was hooked very early on. The main character of the bookseller is an engaging narrator and I loved the interchanging between his attempts to get to the bottom of who Tom and Ben were and Tom writing about falling in love with Ben. Plus it captured the sheer joy of pursuing an academic mystery perfectly, with some fun English eccentricities thrown in for good measure. I will definitely have to check out some more of this author's books now.
However, no matter how much I loved this book, the blurb set several false expectations which decreased my enjoyment. First, it revealed that Tom and Ben were time-travellers and what era they came from. Bit of a bummer considering how much of the book is about trying to figure out who they are and where they came from: I'd have enjoyed the mystery elements far more if I hadn't known their resolution and would have had fun trying to work out what was going on. Secondly, the blurb focuses on the love story between the two men. Yeah, that's present in the story and I became far too invested in the couple considering how short this book was, but the story isn't focused on that. When I recommend this to people, it might just be a case of shoving it at them and making them not read the blurb, because I think it'll spoil it for them.
Thank you Netgalley for giving me an ARC copy in exchange for an honest review.
Oh wow. Any book about someone trying to solve a historical mystery is going to have my attention. Ditto with digging through archives and using books as dead-drops. So I was hooked very early on. The main character of the bookseller is an engaging narrator and I loved the interchanging between his attempts to get to the bottom of who Tom and Ben were and Tom writing about falling in love with Ben. Plus it captured the sheer joy of pursuing an academic mystery perfectly, with some fun English eccentricities thrown in for good measure. I will definitely have to check out some more of this author's books now.
However, no matter how much I loved this book, the blurb set several false expectations which decreased my enjoyment. First, it revealed that Tom and Ben were time-travellers and what era they came from. Bit of a bummer considering how much of the book is about trying to figure out who they are and where they came from: I'd have enjoyed the mystery elements far more if I hadn't known their resolution and would have had fun trying to work out what was going on. Secondly, the blurb focuses on the love story between the two men. Yeah, that's present in the story and I became far too invested in the couple considering how short this book was, but the story isn't focused on that. When I recommend this to people, it might just be a case of shoving it at them and making them not read the blurb, because I think it'll spoil it for them.
Thank you Netgalley for giving me an ARC copy in exchange for an honest review.
kaa's review against another edition
2.0
The writing was gorgeous, but the story was a bit of a let down for me. I knew going in that it was going to be light on the SF, but I was hoping for more focus on Tom and Ben's story. I didn't find Emmett very interesting, so I was disappointed that the story spent so much time on him. I never felt very connected to any of the characters, so the attention I had to give to follow what was going on ended up being kind of frustrating. I was also hoping that there was going to be something a little bit more surprising in the story, but