Jackson has a secret – he can travel through time. Sadly, it’s not as cool as it seems. He can just pop back a few hours, observe things, and not change anything. His friend Adam, who he’s trusted with this, is trying to get him to record every time he does this so they can find out more about the mysterious ability he developed eight months or so ago, but Jackson looks on it as little more than something fun. And then everything changes… armed men burst into his girlfriend’s room, and attack the pair, leaving her dying. Panicking, he jumps back in time 2 years, far further than he’s ever gone before. This time, he can’t get back to 2009. Somehow, Jackson needs to try and find a way to get back to his own time and save Holly, but it’s quickly apparent that there is an awful lot that he needs to learn about himself before he can get to grips with this.
| Tempest by Julie Cross | |
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| Category: Teens | |
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Reviewer: Robert James
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| Summary: This time-travel story is a very enjoyable one for the most part - unfortunately, an ending which I found very disappointing soured me on it somewhat. | |
| Buy? Maybe | Borrow? Maybe |
| Pages: 432 | Date: January 2012 |
| Publisher: Macmillan Children's Books | |
| External links: Author's website | |
| ISBN: 9780230756267 | |
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Intrigued? I certainly was, from the opening few chapters. I should add a disclaimer here – I tend to find time travel books hit and miss. Perhaps due to my complete hopelessness at science, it has to be explained pretty clearly for me to understand it. My head is spinning from the different types of time travel which come into play here, to be honest. That may be just me, but I think the explanations were a little bit too confusing.
That said, I’m perfectly happy to just forget about trying to understand what on earth is happening, and get drawn into the storyline, and for much of Tempest, I was able to do that. It’s a very exciting read with a strong narrator in Jackson – who’s an interesting choice as a 19-year old male, somewhat older than the majority in this genre. I particularly liked Jackson’s relationship with his twin sister Courtney, who has been dead several years by 2009 but who he was able to see at various points prior to 2007 by jumping backwards in time, and found it really touching. Adam and Jackson’s dad were also intriguing characters, although I found Holly a rather bland love interest, and the villains in the story to be a bit two-dimensional as well.
Having said all of that, I’m really struggling to decide whether or not to recommend this one. I loved the first three quarters of it, with the excitement carrying me past the bits which were confusing me – but the ending, to me, was a clunky and fairly predictable one which totally killed any interest I have in reading further books in this series. I don’t want to go into too many details for fear of spoilers, but I found it very disappointing and fairly cheap – it also managed to get me even more confused about the time travel. After taking a few hours to calm down (I initially nearly threw the book at my PC!), I think that other people may have less issues with the ending than I do, so will say that it’s a possible recommendation for fans of the genre.
If you like male narrators, then for a fabulous series about a teen trying to save the girl he loves, I adore the Caster Chronicles, which start with Beautiful Creatures by Kami Garcia and Margaret Stohl.
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You can read more book reviews or buy Tempest by Julie Cross at Amazon.co.uk Amazon currently charges £2.99 for standard delivery for orders under £20, over which delivery is free.
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