A review by mdpenguin
Just One Damned Thing After Another by Jodi Taylor

adventurous emotional mysterious tense medium-paced
  • Plot- or character-driven? A mix
  • Strong character development? No
  • Diverse cast of characters? No
  • Flaws of characters a main focus? No

3.0

I had pretty much expected this to be a bit of a knockoff of Connie Willis' Oxford Time Travel series. It does have a couple of the more clever conceits from it, but Taylor definitely deserves credit for making it into its own thing. That said, a lot about it fell flat for me. 

The overall story was good and there was some good adventure, but the characters were so poorly drawn and the in-story pacing wasn't clear. I'm not entirely sure how long of a period of time is covered in this book: the writing makes it feel like a year but certain lines in it suggest four or five or more. The characters, similarly, weren't clear. They'd get described as having such and such personality traits and then we'd never really see it. Mostly they were all pretty flat and sometimes they just didn't seem coherent. Sadly, that includes the protagonist and her love interest: the romance wasn't at all believable to me and even if it was, I just couldn't care because the characters were just plot devices. I'd shrug and say that it was just more plot-driven than I normally like but we're put in positions where we really are supposed to care about the characters and I just never felt it. 

Overall, it's better than fair in as far as it's an entertaining novel playing with some entertaining ideas. If it didn't strive to be any more than that and maybe ended a little earlier in the story or let people be friends instead of lovers then I'd probably have a higher regard for it. 
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