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ailsabristow 's review for:
Time's Edge
by Rysa Walker
So yesterday I was laid out with some pretty extreme back pain, where anything other than being completely horizontal was complete agony. What's the best kind of book to read in this situation? YA, of course.
I have huge affection for the YA genre, particularly the dystopian end of the spectrum, and I'm not even a little bit ashamed. For some reason, YA seems to attract the wackiest, most adventurous writers, and I appreciate that.
Rysa Walker's "Chronos Files"* series is a good example of this. I love time travel books, I wish more books were about time travel. You get to do the sci fi thing, but you also get to do the history nerd thing, and that is a beautiful pairing, my friends. Anyway, this series revolves around Kate (who is your fairly standard-issue YA heroine) who becomes embroiled in a plot to save humanity (and her own timeline).
In this second book, Walker seems to find her stride a bit more, explaining more about the mechanics of time travel (which you know what, I'm ok with these being hella confusing, because HI time travel should be confusing!) and getting into the swing of managing multiple timelines and plotlines. Now that we're past all the expository stuff of the first book, we can leap into pacey, exciting fights against impending doom.
I also felt that the historical aspects of this book were much more interesting than in the first book: the H.H Holmes thing felt way too sensational for me, whereas the mystery of Six Bridges / God's Hollow was more haunting and - for me - disturbing, especially as it placed our heroine in a morally questionable position. Equally, the 1938 section was executed really well, and I felt that there was much more at stake for these characters than in the previous novel.
Is this great literature? Well, no. Is it chock full of YA tropes? Hell yes. Did I eventually feel like I might throw my book across the room if there was another reference to The Princess Bride? Yes, and the only thing stopping me was that I was reading on my iPad. (Like, seriously, we get that Kate REALLY loves the Princess Bride. This character trait is over-established to the point of being ridiculous.) But ultimately did any of this stop me enjoying the book? Nope. I read it pretty much in a single sitting, which I guess makes this the definition of a page-turner.
*I read the first in this series (Timebound) earlier in the year, but apparently forgot to review.
I have huge affection for the YA genre, particularly the dystopian end of the spectrum, and I'm not even a little bit ashamed. For some reason, YA seems to attract the wackiest, most adventurous writers, and I appreciate that.
Rysa Walker's "Chronos Files"* series is a good example of this. I love time travel books, I wish more books were about time travel. You get to do the sci fi thing, but you also get to do the history nerd thing, and that is a beautiful pairing, my friends. Anyway, this series revolves around Kate (who is your fairly standard-issue YA heroine) who becomes embroiled in a plot to save humanity (and her own timeline).
In this second book, Walker seems to find her stride a bit more, explaining more about the mechanics of time travel (which you know what, I'm ok with these being hella confusing, because HI time travel should be confusing!) and getting into the swing of managing multiple timelines and plotlines. Now that we're past all the expository stuff of the first book, we can leap into pacey, exciting fights against impending doom.
Is this great literature? Well, no. Is it chock full of YA tropes? Hell yes. Did I eventually feel like I might throw my book across the room if there was another reference to The Princess Bride? Yes, and the only thing stopping me was that I was reading on my iPad. (Like, seriously, we get that Kate REALLY loves the Princess Bride. This character trait is over-established to the point of being ridiculous.) But ultimately did any of this stop me enjoying the book? Nope. I read it pretty much in a single sitting, which I guess makes this the definition of a page-turner.
*I read the first in this series (Timebound) earlier in the year, but apparently forgot to review.