Tag Archives: Time Travel

Review: The Eye of Ra by Ben Gartner

Book Review and Content, Fantasy, Middle Grade 8-12, , , , , , ,
The Eye of Ra by Ben Gartner

The Eye of Ra
Ben Gartner
Crescent Vista Press
Published February 1, 2020

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About The Eye of Ra

Exploring a mysterious cave in the mountains behind their house, John and his sister Sarah are shocked to discover they’ve time traveled to ancient Egypt!

Now they must work together to find a way back home from an ancient civilization of golden desert sand and a towering new pyramid, without parents to save them. The adventures abound—cobras, scorpions, a tomb robber, and more! The two kids have to trust each other, make friends who can help, and survive the challenges thrown at them . . . or be stuck in ancient Egypt forever.

For readers graduating from the Magic Treehouse series and ready for intense action, dive into this middle grade novel rich with meticulous historical detail.

My Review

I feel like books about time travel to ancient civilizations are really nostalgic for me because I used to really love a movie like that when I was little, so I was excited to read THE EYE OF RA for that reason.

It’s a cute story– brother and sister with really different personalities find themselves tossed into life in ancient Egypt and trying to figure out how to get home. I liked that Sarah is the adventurous one and John is the more structured, introverted one. I feel like lots of stories would have had those personalities reversed, so I thought it was kind of fun to see it this way.

Disclaimer: I know very little about ancient Egypt and the construction of the pyramids, so I can’t really speak to the historical accuracy there. I did find it a little odd that the characters from ancient Egypt still spoke in a modern way and the relationship between the husband and wife as well as between the parents and children was very modern. That part of it felt a little more like a Fred Flintstone version of ancient life, if that makes sense?

I thought it was cool that John and Sarah meet someone in ancient Egypt who face one of the same difficulties they face (moving far away) and that it made them consider elements of the move that they hadn’t considered before.

The ending seemed a little abrupt to me. I would have liked the kids to have been more actively involved in solving the mystery. At the start, they’re very much taking ownership of locating the thief and solving the crime, and I liked that– I wanted that energy to continue through the end of the book.

Overall, I thought it was a fun read that would be enjoyable for middle elementary school readers, like maybe third to fifth grade.

Content Notes

Recommended for Ages 8 to 10.

Representation
Sarah and John are white and the other kids are Egyptian.

Profanity/Crude Language Content
None.

Romance/Sexual Content
Reference to a kiss between Sarah and a boy.

Spiritual Content
References to Egyptian mythology – the god Ra and others.

Violent Content
Some situations of peril.

Drug Content
None.

Note: This post contains affiliate links, which do not cost you anything to use, but which help support the costs of running this blog. I received a free copy of THE EYE OF RA in exchange for my honest review.

Review: Evermore by Sara Holland

Book Review and Content, Fantasy, Romance, Young Adult/Teen 12-18, , , , , ,

Evermore
Sara Holland
HarperCollins
Publishes on December 31, 2018

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About Evermore
Jules Ember was raised hearing legends of the ancient magic of the wicked Alchemist and the good Sorceress. But she has just learned the truth: not only are the stories true, but she herself is the Alchemist, and Caro—a woman who single-handedly murdered the Queen and Jules’s first love, Roan, in cold blood—is the Sorceress.

The whole kingdom believes that Jules is responsible for the murders, and a hefty bounty has been placed on her head. And Caro is intent on destroying Jules, who stole her heart twelve lifetimes ago. Jules must delve into the stories that she now recognizes are accounts of her own past. For it is only by piecing together the mysteries of her lives that Jules will be able to save the person who has captured her own heart in this one.

My Review
I think I liked Evermore better than the first book in the series, which is a pretty rare occurrence for me. I liked Everless. I enjoyed reading it—found the concept of time as currency to be really fascinating. Partly, though, I just wasn’t a big fan of Roan. I kind of felt like Jules could do better in terms of a match who was her equal.

Some of the characters in Evermore really surprised me. Elias and Stef were my favorites. Stef because she was so scrappy and Elias for his loyalty and sense of humor.

I loved the flashbacks that showed Jules and Caro’s early experiences with each other and the way Jules’ recovered memories changed the story. It had a little bit of the feel of the movie Memento that way.

Evermore is a clean, original story with a lot to offer in terms of great characters and a high-energy plot. It’s got a little more content than Everless, so be sure to check the notes below especially for young or sensitive readers.

Recommended for Ages 13 up.

Cultural Elements
Major characters are white or not physically described.

Profanity/Crude Language Content
One instance of mild profanity.

Romance/Sexual Content
Kissing between girl and boy. At one point, she kisses him while in her underclothes. One scene hints that they have sex, but no details of the event itself.

Spiritual Content
Jules is on her twelfth reincarnation as the Alchemist, who can control time. The Sorceress plans to kill her, and this time Jules won’t reincarnate.

Violent Content
Battles between soldiers and Jules. At one point, soldiers burn a village, killing civilians. Another man receives a critical sword wound.

Drug Content
None.

Note: I received a free copy of this book in exchange for my honest review.

Review: The Here and Now by Ann Brashares

Book Review and Content, Sci-Fi, Young Adult/Teen 12-18, , , , , ,

The Here and Now by Ann Brashares
Delacorte Press

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Prenna lives a closely guarded life of secrecy, a tightrope walk between fitting in and remaining unnoticed. Twelve unbreakable rules govern her behavior. Those who break them meet accident or relocation. So when Prenna befriends Ethan, a boy from school, she risks everything. Then she discovers that her people, immigrants from more than eighty years in the future, aren’t trying to stop the terrible future from happening, as they once claimed. And her father, who failed to make the journey with her, didn’t abandon the family as she’s been told. If she and Ethan are to save them all, they must follow the careful trail of clues he left behind before her leaders find her.

The idea of this group immigrating to the US illegally, not from another country, but from another time, really fascinated me. Prenna’s whole life exists in this cult-like environment. She’s watched. Punished for every infraction. Carefully taught to follow strict behavior. She struggles to fit in well enough not to be noticed at school. But Ethan can’t stop noticing her. His determined friendship is immensely charming. The way he accepts her without making her feel odd or lame? So sweet. If you’re a ‘book boyfriend’ type, he’s one for the list.

I ripped through the first half of the book, staying up WAY too late to read. I was about to force myself to put it down and go to sleep when this crazy plot twist happened and totally blew my mind. Then… the second lost steam. There’s a long passage in which Prenna explains what happened to the world between now and her time. That intense plot element that left me gasping? It gets resolved, but in a weird way. I felt like it needed a bigger moment or something. There is a moment where things get dicey, but the issue was the something terrible was supposed to happen on a particular day. And the day hadn’t ended when everyone was like, Whew, that was close. So I was kind of like, wait!! It’s not over yet!! Only, I guess no one else felt that way? I felt like that diffused the momentum.

The way the story concludes left me thinking there must be a sequel. I can’t find any information saying there will be one, though. I liked the first half of the story much better than the second, but I felt like the end didn’t satisfy if there’s no further story to look forward to. C’est la vie, I guess.

Fans of time traveling stories should consider giving this one a read. I liked that it had those elements of cult-ish-ness and the immigration issue. Definitely presented issues surrounding time travel in ways I hadn’t considered before. There’s a little bit of preaching about how important it is to save the planet no matter how expensive or inconvenient it may be. I agree, so it didn’t bother me.

Language Content
Strong profanity used infrequently.

Sexual Content
Prenna and Ethan discuss whether they should have sex. They share a bed and the back seat of a car, but for sleep. (He does get a teeny bit frisky with her in the bed, but she shuts it down. They plan to have sex, but then decide against it for safety reasons.

Spiritual Content
None.

Violence
Prenna finds a man who has been beaten to death. She and Ethan try to stop a man from brutally murdering a woman. He attacks them. It’s brief and not particularly gory.

Drug Content
Prenna’s leaders give her pills each day that they insist are vitamins.

Review: Life at the Speed of Us by Heather Sappenfield

Book Review and Content, Fantasy, Paranormal, Sci-Fi, Young Adult/Teen 12-18, , , , , , ,

Life at the Speed of Us
Heather Sappenfield
Flux

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After the car accident that takes her mother’s life, Sovern stops talking. She tries to lose herself in dating the boy she shouldn’t, in the rush of speeding downhill on a snowboard. But when another accident disconnects Sovern from even more of her life, she embarks on a quest outside time with only a strangely familiar boy who doesn’t speak her language as a guide.

There were things about this book that I liked. I thought it was cool that Sappenfield used Sovern’s dyslexia throughout the story. She really hammered home the idea that just because Sovern didn’t recognize letters as they were written did not mean she was by any means less intelligent. I liked the scenes in the Ute tribe.

In the scene where Sovern leaves the tribe behind to go home, I had a really hard time following what happened. It’s possible that it’s an issue resolved between the galley version that I read and the final published version. Sometimes I had a hard time connecting with Sovern’s character. The bad boy boyfriend thing seemed a little cliché. I liked that he turned out to be more than that, but I wanted the revelation of who he really is to involve him more, to give me reasons to invest in him more.

I’m going to break a cardinal rule and make a comparison between this book and a BIG book, which I really cringe to do, but hear me out. I think if you like the type of story that is Slaughterhouse Five, you might enjoy this book. I’m not comparing the quality of the writing in one versus the other, but more the somewhat disjointed, go where the story goes feeling that I had in reading Vonnegut’s novel. If you liked I Crawl Through It for the story, not the writing style, you might also enjoy this book.

The style of the narrative is a lot more straightforward and simple than the books I listed.

Language Content
Extreme profanity used moderately.

Sexual Content
Sovern and her boyfriend Gage share cigarettes and kisses together, but she doesn’t have sex with him. Sovern and a boy from the Ute tribe are treated as a married couple after rumors that they’ve slept together. She holds back from giving herself to him, though, unsure whether they can remain together.

Spiritual Content
The Ute believe that a bear chooses someone who is gifted with an ability to travel to other places. Sovern becomes interested in the ideas about the multiverse and theorizes ways to reach other universes.

Violence
Soldiers come to destroy the Ute village. Two tribe members fight them, one is fatally injured. Sovern is injured in a snowboarding accident and then speared by porcupine quills.

Drug Content
Sovern mentions that she and Gage smoke marijuana together.

Note: I received a free copy of this book in exchange for my honest review.

Review: All Our Yesterdays by Cristin Terrill

Blogger's Favorites, Book Review and Content, Mystery/Suspense/Thriller, Sci-Fi, Young Adult/Teen 12-18, , , , ,

All Our Yesterdays by Cristin Terrill
Disney Hyperion

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The walls of her tiny prison cell and the soothing voice of the boy in the cell next to hers make up Em’s world. She waits, dreading the moment the doctor will come again, because she knows he’ll use whatever means necessary to force her to reveal the location of coveted documents. When Em finds a message hidden in the cell’s drain, she knows following the instructions are the only way she can be free. She must find a way to kill the doctor and prevent the creation of the time machine that will destroy the world as she knows it.

As Marina prepares to attend a prestigious political dinner with her best friend James, all she can think about is finding a moment alone with him to reveal her feelings for him. Before she has a chance, an assassin’s attack throws the evening into chaos and threatens the life of the person James holds most dear. Determined to protect James, Marina and James’s best friend Finn launch their own investigation into the identity of the assassin. What she uncovers forces her to reevaluate everything she knows about the one she loves most. Marina’s investigation and Em’s mission collide in a desperate struggle that could destroy everything.

Because it’s a story about time travel, many characters appear more than once as different versions of themselves. Terrill handles this really well, allowing the readers to experience through these different character versions the effects of disillusionment, torture and desperation on once innocent, ordinary teens. Finn is probably my favorite character. I loved the banter between him and Marina, and the way that his relationships with other characters unfolded.

In this story, Time is sentient and can take action to keep the universe from totally unraveling as a result of changes made during various trips back and forth through time. While I loved this concept of Time being almost a character in its own right, I wanted more. I kind of wanted Time itself to play a role in the resolution of the story, so I was a little disappointed when the concept wasn’t developed to play a more important role. Still, this was one plot that kept me guessing. I kept making predictions about what the characters were going to do to restore some kind of order to their future lives, and often I was wrong about how that was going to come about.

The ending was a little bit jarring – there’s kind of a disconnect at one point where things sort of jolt forward or reset and I felt like it was a little bit of a weak transition. I think we’re meant to assume that Time has taken action to protect itself, but that seemed like a bit of a stretch to me in this instance. I’d have liked to see that transition more smoothly and would have liked some of the gaps to have better explanations. Overall, though, I still really enjoyed the story and totally fell in love with the characters.

At one time this book was intended to have a sequel. Since then the author has issued a statement saying that All Our Yesterdays will remain a stand-alone novel. While I am curious what happened next for the characters, I think that was probably a smart move. All Our Yesterdays is a stronger story on its own. Fans will be pleased to know that Terrill has released a short story taking place several months after the end of the story on her web site.

Language Content
Mild profanity used infrequently.

Sexual Content
During some pretty intense kissing, Marina removes her shirt. Things break up and go no further. Em and Finn have a romantic relationship and share kisses and sleep together. No details.

Spiritual Content
In this story, Time is sentient and capable of self-preservation.

Violence
Em and Finn are tortured for information regarding missing papers. An assassin tries to kill James and his brother. Torture scenes are brief but intense. The assassin uses a gun.

Drug Content
None.

Review: Haunters by Thomas Taylor

Book Review and Content, Clean Fiction, Paranormal, Young Adult/Teen 12-18, , , ,

Haunters
Thomas Taylor
Chicken House Publishers
Published May 28, 2013

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After his father’s death, David began to dream of strange things. He visits a boy in 1940s London, and though David knows they are just dreams, his friendship with Eddie feels as real as his waking life. When a forceful team attempt to abduct David from school, he learns there’s more to his dreams than simple sleep. David is one of the gifted Dreamwalkers who can travel to other times and locations during sleep. He appears to others as a ghost, and in fact, that’s how his mysterious dream friend has come to identify him. David teams up with other Dreamwalkers to stop a vicious group called Haunters who use the dreamwalking ability to control and manipulate history. The group’s current target is Eddie, David’s dream friend. With his new allies, David must stop the Haunters from destroying Eddie and ending the Dreamwalker project altogether, but in order to succeed, they will have to defeat the most powerful dreamwalker the team has ever known.

Haunters is peppered with interesting characters and early teen awkwardness as scenes flip back and forth between modern day and World War II ravaged London. Tension mounts as David’s quest becomes more urgent, making this a difficult novel to put down, once one reaches its midpoint. Fans of sci-fi or super-hero stories will enjoy this time-traveling, super-human story, though the title leaves one pondering why the novel is named for its villains rather than its heroes.

Profanity/Crude Language Content
None.

Sexual Content
None.

Spiritual Content
A London girl mistakes the presence of the computer simulation called Misty for an angel.

Violence
Characters from opposing sides clash and attempt to destroy one another’s ability to dreamwalk using a powerful mind attack. One of the Haunters uses a hired hit man to attempt to murder a teenage boy. The boy is wounded, but survives, though his attacker is slain. Very few graphic details.

Drug Content
David takes a pill to allow him to dreamwalk without being disturbed.

Note: I received a free copy of this book in exchange for my honest review.

 

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