Timebound

Timebound - Rysa Walker This is the story of a young girl named Kate, who has a gift of being able to go back in time and is recruited by her grandmother, who is from the future but stayed in this timeline and had two daughters. One of the daughters, Kate's aunt, disappeared in the past when she got her hands on one of the medallions that allows them to go back in time. The father of the two daughter's also has this gift and uses it to go back in time for evil and dominance. Kate's grandmother is prepping her to go back in time and change things in order to right a lot of the wrong that is going on and to hopefully find her lost aunt in the process. She has been prepped to go back during the Columbian Expedition World Fair and happened to run into the famous H.H. Holmes, known for his many slayings of young women.

I thought that this book started out grabbing my attention as I have read Devil in the White City and had some knowledge of the World's Columbian Exposition and H.H.Holmes. But then it would lose my interest and tug it back again, and became an endless tug-of-war battle with my attention span.

I thought that it was an easy and campy read and I don't regret reading it. It just felt like another Twilight or Divergent type of series with different locations and different teenagers, but if you strip all of that the pretense seems the same...I want this guy but I can't be with him and I also want that guy but can't be with him, they both want me but I can't decide, and I want to live in this life and save that one or what not...I'm exaggerating a little, I know, but that's what it felt like for me.

Although I thought it was a fair book and I enjoyed it more than the previous books mentioned, I had a very hard time with how easily people believed Kate's story. If a stranger came up to me and told me that they could travel back in time, I would be calling the crazy bin on them. And it struck me as odd that she would just tell anyone as freely as if she stumped her toe. It was this that really lost my interest in the beginning because the fact that time travel seemed more real to me than the fact that others readily believed her (Kate).

The second issue I had was that I could pretty much predict the next books based on the not so very subtle hints that were thrown in, such as the fact that Connor could very well be her own great grandson. I mean if she's been intimate with his great grandfather and he is still so in love with her then the chances seem great that this is the case. The fact that she never questioned it or none of the parties involved never mentioned anything was odd and revealing at the same time...so it was like a sore thumb just sticking out of the book and took way too much of my attention away from the story at times (when they were together or if she was talking to Connor). Also, I found it revealing that she and her friend (Charlayne) both took martial arts together, who are now on different timelines and no longer know each other and the other is part of the Cyrists, really pushed me to believe that it's pretty clear that they are going to end up going head-to-head in the future. I may be wrong about both of them, but it seems too plausible for me.

Finally, I really have a hard time with writers who feel the need to over-explain something that they just brought to our attention with actions. It makes me feel like they don't find the reader to be smart enough to realize what we just read. For instance, and this happened quite often throughout the book, Kate will get upset about something her grandmother or mother says, after a whole chapter of telling us why they are mad in action, but the author has to reiterate something along the lines of..."I feel bad that I am mad at them considering that they just..." and then summarizes the whole chapter that we just read.

Overall, even though my review may sound somewhat negative, I really did enjoy a good deal of it. It just wasn't mind-blowing or over exciting for me for the reason's above, but I didn't hate it. I just probably won't read any of the next ones. I do recommend this for some young adults that don't mind a campy and fun book that at times can be confusing to the point all you can think about is..."Dang, this author really racked her brain to try to cover every angle to the point no one can really understand what is going on" to "Why is she over-explaining every single thing over and over because it is so annoying that I wasn't paying much attention and am now confused or is it that it's just all so confusing?".