Time and Time Again

TL;DR

I liked this book but it could have been so much better. It starts of bad then it gets interesting and the best parts are the last 2 chapters. Then it ends and you're left feeling like they should have focused on the last parts of the story rather that what we got.

My Scoring System

I have five things I look for in a book, if the book checks all five it's a 5/5 stars book, if it checks none it's a 1/5 stars and everything else is a combination:

✓ - Main Story: I really liked the concept. Time travel is my favorite sub genre of science fiction and it had the potential of being great. Imagine Jason Bourne traveling back in time, it gave me that feeling with the main character.

X - Side Stories (if it applies): I don't understand why did we focus so much time on this random girl. Yes we get it he lost his family and he finds this passion again with this girl but we're not here for a romantic novel. You might she's not that bad and I'm exaggerating but on the last two chapters we get to meet another girl. When you get there and see the night and day difference between them you will scratch you head thinking "wait, why didn't we spend more time with this character instead of the other one?".

X - Characters: I liked the main character, he's not perfect and I will expand on this in the extensive review but he was enjoyable to read and I liked that he was very capable. It reminded me of Jason Bourne.

I don't understand the purpose of the love interest girl or why she was in this story, like I said in the Side Stories section you can remove her and nothing would be lost. This is so much more apparent when you get to meet KT.

KT is great for the whole 4/5 pages we get to be with her. You will be angry once you see how cool she is and realize that the story is going to end next page. It's very frustrating reading how it was set up like they're going on a new adventure together (at this point I was thinking the story will end in a cliffhanger and set up the sequel) and then it ends.

McCluskey is the worst part of this book, I will tell you about her in the extensive review.

✓ - Setting/Ambiance: I liked the places we got to go like the old Constantinople. Going back to those times and seeing how the main character reacted to being in an old train with wooden seats and stuff was enjoyable to read.

✓ - Ending: I'm angry for how quickly the part with KT ended but I also really liked the ending. Anyone with a bit of knowledge of time travel knows how trying to prevent stuff goes down and this is no exception. Great ending.

Extensive Review

Ok so let me expand on the stuff that irritated me while reading. Let's start with the biggest one.

McCluskey is the worst character I've ever read in my small library of books. She's the reason it took me so much time to get through this book. I thought she was going to spend the entire story with the main character so I stopped reading. Thankfully she's just at the beginning. Once you get to chapter 18 you can breathe a sigh of relief. There are characters that are designed to be hated, be it because they're evil, selfish... And then there are just plain bad characters. She's supposed to be a 70 year old cranky military veteran but not even a 2025 teenager talks the way she does. This is not hyperbole when I say she's extremely annoying. You will have to get through 18 chapters of her and it won't be easy.

The main character is great, I liked him but of course he too has to play the time travel cliché. Inner monologue: "Okay, I need to be discreet. I should try and avoid altering anything because who knows what consequences it will have in the future". The next sentence he saves a women and her two children from a car...

This needs to stop, really. Just alter stuff and deal with the consequences but don't make me waste time reading how we shouldn't meddle with anything and then in the next sentence you do that. This is a very frustrating thing I find in all the stories where it's about time travel.

In my opinion the author should have removed the love interest and just have him meet KT around the middle of the story and then have them do what they set up in the last few pages. I think that would have been far more interesting than the boring romantic stuff we got. Again with Jason Bourne, he too gets to meet with a girl and becomes a love interest. The difference is that she actually does stuff, she's helping Jason and is a big part of his success. Meanwhile this girl is just an Irish girl from the past who thinks our main character is interesting.

A roller-coster of emotions with this book

Starts dreadfully with McCluskey.

Gets interesting when the main character actually does the stuff he was sent back to do.

Snooze fest when we meet the love interest.

Best part of the story when we meet KT and see what they're planning to do together.

Absolute deep dive in the Mariana Trench when we see it leads to nowhere in the next few pages.

A really cool ending that I liked.