Review: Julie Cross - Tempest

Julie Cross - Tempest

• Pub Date: January 23, 2012
• Publisher: Macmillan Audio
• Format: CD, 10 hours 51 minutes
• Age Range: Young Adult

The year is 2009. Nineteen-year-old Jackson Meyer is a normal guy… he’s in college, has a girlfriend… and he can travel back through time. But it’s not like the movies – nothing changes in the present after his jumps, there’s no space-time continuum issues or broken flux capacitors – it’s just harmless fun.

That is… until the day strangers burst in on Jackson and his girlfriend, Holly, and during a struggle with Jackson, Holly is fatally shot. In his panic, Jackson jumps back two years to 2007, but this is not like his previous time jumps. Now he’s stuck in 2007 and can’t get back to the future.

Desperate to somehow return to 2009 to save Holly but unable to return to his rightful year, Jackson settles into 2007 and learns what he can about his abilities.

But it’s not long before the people who shot Holly in 2009 come looking for Jackson in the past, and these “Enemies of Time” will stop at nothing to recruit this powerful young time-traveler. Recruit… or kill him.

Piecing together the clues about his father, the Enemies of Time, and himself, Jackson must decide how far he’s willing to go to save Holly… and possibly the entire world.

I received this review audio book from Macmillan Audio. Here is my honest review:

I enjoyed this time travel story. It was different in its rules and expectations of time travel. And it's from a male POV, which I tend to enjoy since there aren't many of them out there. This is a young adult novel for the older set of YA readers, and it's entertaining and suspenseful. A lot of people have said some negative things, but for a debut novel, this one ranks up there for sure.

Usually I am turned off by male narrators, but Matthew Brown does a pretty good job on this one. Males aren't as good as impersonating female voices, where as females do male voices spectacularly. In this audio book, Brown's women voices suffer a bit, but it's not enough to detract listeners.

Confusion set in throughout the novel as to what time period it was at different times. And I didn't like how the rules kind of got made up as it went on, but Jackson doesn't really know all the rules either, so I guess it was acceptable. But the half jumps, full jumps, and the sickness that he got from combining the types of jumps were a bit convoluted.

I did a lot of roller coaster dips with this book though. At times I really enjoyed it, and at other times the lull bored me. There were way more enjoyable times, though, and I always was concerned for the characters. All of them. Holly, Jackson, Adam, etc etc. Even the little mystery girl at the end. I have my theories about her.. but I won't know until the second book! I'll probably be reading that one since the end of this one broke my heart a bit.

Bottom line: Check this out if you want a fast-paced male POV time travel book with some mystery at the end.

Rating:

3.5 / 5 book sharks