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A review by krakentamer
Toward Yesterday by Paul Antony Jones
4.0
Let's talk about 2 other books before I get into this review:
1) My favorite book of all time is Ken Grimwood's [b:Replay|341735|Replay|Ken Grimwood|https://d.gr-assets.com/books/1441156728s/341735.jpg|1804797]. In Replay, a middle-aged man has a heart attack and instead of dying, wakes up earlier in his life, as a college student, complete with all the memories of the next 20+ years. He dies and re-awakens many times, and I don't want to spoil that book here, so I'll stop. But Toward Yesterday is exactly the premise of Replay, but extended to the entire population of the earth. Ok, so Toward Yesterday isn't exactly a truly original book, but there were many thought-provoking issues that came up, only some of which were brought up by the book, but quite a few that have me thinking (one, right off the top of my head: if a person was born only a short time (let's say "weeks") after the time reset, would they still be born the same person as before?)
2) Kurt Vonnegut wrote a book called [b:Timequake|9594|Timequake|Kurt Vonnegut|https://d.gr-assets.com/books/1405784951s/9594.jpg|6835609], in which the entirety of the population jumps back 10 years, and with all memory of future events intact; however, they do not have the ability to change any actions, as they do not have free will. As is often the case with Vonnegut, the book was the story ABOUT the story, which will probably only make sense if you've ever read much Vonnegut. I was really hoping for so much more from Timequake, but was ultimately let down, as I felt that the ideas and ramifications of the time reset event were not really explored to any degree at all.
So... Toward Yesterday is the book that I'd wished Timequake could've been, even though I could not stop comparing it to Replay. However, to be perfectly clear - Toward Yesterday is definitely not as good as Replay, even though it had potential to be.
To me, this book failed to be as good as it could've been on 2.5 fronts:
1) The final 1/4 of the book has an additional layer of drama to it that is totally unnecessary, in my opinion. It's also based on a coincidence that one of the characters themselves mentions must be a trillion to one. Unfortunately, it was telegraphed from nearly the beginning and simply added nothing to the book beyond padding the word count.
1.5) There is a romance sub-plot that also seems totally unnecessary, or at the very least - totally underused ()
2) The cop-out ending.
So in the end, I liked the book, but wish that it could've been just a little bit better.
1) My favorite book of all time is Ken Grimwood's [b:Replay|341735|Replay|Ken Grimwood|https://d.gr-assets.com/books/1441156728s/341735.jpg|1804797]. In Replay, a middle-aged man has a heart attack and instead of dying, wakes up earlier in his life, as a college student, complete with all the memories of the next 20+ years. He dies and re-awakens many times, and I don't want to spoil that book here, so I'll stop. But Toward Yesterday is exactly the premise of Replay, but extended to the entire population of the earth. Ok, so Toward Yesterday isn't exactly a truly original book, but there were many thought-provoking issues that came up, only some of which were brought up by the book, but quite a few that have me thinking (one, right off the top of my head: if a person was born only a short time (let's say "weeks") after the time reset, would they still be born the same person as before?)
2) Kurt Vonnegut wrote a book called [b:Timequake|9594|Timequake|Kurt Vonnegut|https://d.gr-assets.com/books/1405784951s/9594.jpg|6835609], in which the entirety of the population jumps back 10 years, and with all memory of future events intact; however, they do not have the ability to change any actions, as they do not have free will. As is often the case with Vonnegut, the book was the story ABOUT the story, which will probably only make sense if you've ever read much Vonnegut. I was really hoping for so much more from Timequake, but was ultimately let down, as I felt that the ideas and ramifications of the time reset event were not really explored to any degree at all.
So... Toward Yesterday is the book that I'd wished Timequake could've been, even though I could not stop comparing it to Replay. However, to be perfectly clear - Toward Yesterday is definitely not as good as Replay, even though it had potential to be.
To me, this book failed to be as good as it could've been on 2.5 fronts:
1) The final 1/4 of the book has an additional layer of drama to it that is totally unnecessary, in my opinion. It's also based on a coincidence that one of the characters themselves mentions must be a trillion to one. Unfortunately, it was telegraphed from nearly the beginning and simply added nothing to the book beyond padding the word count.
1.5) There is a romance sub-plot that also seems totally unnecessary, or at the very least - totally underused (
Spoiler
It would've been very interesting to have pointed out that even though biologically there was only a 10? year difference between the lovers, one had an additional 20+ years aging and experience on the other, so, in effect, it was more of a 30+ year age difference2) The cop-out ending
Spoiler
The bomb killed all the team and destroyed the experiment, but it still worked out anyway because of ... alternate timelines spilling over? or something... whatever it takes to tack on an ending to the book, right?So in the end, I liked the book, but wish that it could've been just a little bit better.