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A review by bookanonjeff
A Quantum Love Story by Mike Chen
emotional
funny
hopeful
lighthearted
medium-paced
- Plot- or character-driven? Plot
- Strong character development? Yes
- Loveable characters? Yes
- Diverse cast of characters? Yes
- Flaws of characters a main focus? No
5.0
Title Vs Genre Will Cause A War In Booklandia. This is a book where the title will quell any riots over the story... and yet so many places (perhaps because of the publisher? unclear there) classifying this as a "romance" for genre purposes... is going to spark those very riots. To be clear, this book does NOT meet RWA qualifications for a "romance novel" - and is actually all the stronger for it. (As is generally the case, fwiw.) Which is why the title is correct and speaks to exactly what you can expect here: a scifi love story, both with the characters and from the writer to the audience. This is a quirky, funny, heart bursting, extremely cloudy room kind of scifi tale that is going to take you less on a rollercoaster of emotion and more through a multiverse of various combinations of emotions.
Yes, at its base this is a Groundhog Day/ Edge Of Tomorrow kind of time looping tale. Which then builds into almost Terminator level time looping. Even certain elements of a Michael Crichton TIMELINE or a Randall Ingermanson TRANSGRESSION or even a Jeremy Robinson THE DIDYMUS CONTINGENCY. All while based in and around a "super-LHC" - which reminds me, make sure to check hasthelargehadroncolliderdestroyedtheworldyet.com a few times while reading this book, just to be sure - and its experiments.
And while I normally make it a point to never reveal anything about spoilers, there is one in particular that applies here that people routinely ask about re: dogs. So I'm going to put it under a spoiler tag (or remove this entire paragraph on sites that don't support a spoiler tag) and you, the reader of my review, can choose to read it or not:Yes, the dog dies in this book. It is a carefully selected rescue dog and has a long and healthy life before dying peacefully in its sleep, but it does die.
Overall this book really was quite good and quite a ride - one of the very few where I knew I had to immediately begin writing the review as soon as I finished the book itself. That, to me over the course of *so very many* books and Advance Review Copies over the last several years, is one of the marks of a particularly good book - you're just left in such emotional upheaval that you *have* to write to get the thoughts out of your own head. But don't go into this book expecting a romance - it does NOT meet those "official" guidelines - and, again, is stronger for it. It absolutely IS a love story (and yes, "clean"/ "sweet" crowd, you'll find this one perfectly acceptable), and honestly one of the better ones I've read in the last several years.
Very much recommended.
Yes, at its base this is a Groundhog Day/ Edge Of Tomorrow kind of time looping tale. Which then builds into almost Terminator level time looping. Even certain elements of a Michael Crichton TIMELINE or a Randall Ingermanson TRANSGRESSION or even a Jeremy Robinson THE DIDYMUS CONTINGENCY. All while based in and around a "super-LHC" - which reminds me, make sure to check hasthelargehadroncolliderdestroyedtheworldyet.com a few times while reading this book, just to be sure - and its experiments.
And while I normally make it a point to never reveal anything about spoilers, there is one in particular that applies here that people routinely ask about re: dogs. So I'm going to put it under a spoiler tag (or remove this entire paragraph on sites that don't support a spoiler tag) and you, the reader of my review, can choose to read it or not:
Overall this book really was quite good and quite a ride - one of the very few where I knew I had to immediately begin writing the review as soon as I finished the book itself. That, to me over the course of *so very many* books and Advance Review Copies over the last several years, is one of the marks of a particularly good book - you're just left in such emotional upheaval that you *have* to write to get the thoughts out of your own head. But don't go into this book expecting a romance - it does NOT meet those "official" guidelines - and, again, is stronger for it. It absolutely IS a love story (and yes, "clean"/ "sweet" crowd, you'll find this one perfectly acceptable), and honestly one of the better ones I've read in the last several years.
Very much recommended.