Saturday, January 10, 2015

Timbound

By Rysa Walker

When Kate Pierce-Keller’s grandmother gives her a strange blue medallion and speaks of time travel, sixteen-year-old Kate assumes the old woman is delusional. But it all becomes horrifyingly real when a murder in the past destroys the foundation of Kate’s present-day life. Suddenly, that medallion is the only thing protecting Kate from blinking out of existence.
Kate learns that the 1893 killing is part of something much more sinister, and her genetic ability to time travel makes Kate the only one who can fix the future. Risking everything, she travels back in time to the Chicago World’s fair to try to prevent the murder and the chain of events that follows.
Changing the timeline comes with a personal cost—if Kate succeeds, the boy she loves will have no memory of her existence. And regardless of her motives, does Kate have the right to manipulate the fate of the entire world?

Having just read Ruby Red, this book felt strangely familiar. Let me say, the two are quite different in execution and results, but both being about girls from modern days who time travel back to the Chicago World’s fair was a strange coincidence. Kate was your typical teenage girl, though she goes through quite the ordeal when she realizes that someone who can time travel has messed with her past and the only thing keeping her from blinking out of existence is her own medallion that allows her to travel in time as well. She has to figure out how to undo the damage while dealing with her newfound abilities and a new reality forming around her. Should she trust the boy on the train who looks at her with tenderness and love, or allow herself to fall for the boy who helps her deal with her new life, at the risk of losing him if she puts everything right? This is a great time-travel story, and handles the paradoxes without too much confusion. As long as you don’t overthink it, it works. This is a solid addition to the time-travel genre. My only beef is with the introduction of the ridiculously overdone love triangle.

I give it a 3.5 out of 5 

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