ARC Review: Tempest

Tempest, by Julie Cross. Due out on 3 January 2012. The GoodReads summary:

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.

So I feel kinda guilty writing a review for this book. Well, maybe guilty isn’t the right word. I just feel like this book was probably a lot better than I thought it was, so my review won’t accurately showcase the book’s good qualities. Like, it was totally a “it’s not you, it’s me” kind of situation. Because here’s the deal: I have major trouble getting into books with a male protagonist. I KNOW. That’s horrible of me, and I really wish I could, but for some reason, I just cannot connect with books where the main character is a guy. And believe me, I’ve tried. So I feel like my review of this book won’t really do it justice. So I’m just going to list off the things I liked and didn’t like about the book--maybe I can be more objective that way.

Things I liked

-Holly. Jackson’s girlfriend is pretty awesome. She’s level-headed and down to earth and willing to call Jackson on all his crap. She just comes across as a real person, not as a secondary character.

-Older YA. Jackson’s 19, so it was awesome to get to hang out with a slightly older YA protagonist. Don’t get me wrong, I love high school drama, but it was nice to have someone a little more mature.

-Time jumps. Jackson jumps back to various times in his life, and for a while he gets stuck two years in the past. It was just fascinating for me to try to imagine what I would do if I ended up two years in the past, trying to live that same life all over again. It got me thinking about what I would change and what I would keep the same.

Things I didn’t like so much

-Thinking. Okay, time for another dirty secret--I don’t like books where I have to put effort into understanding what the heck in going on. And this book had a TON of explanation of time travel and the people who can do it, so I kinda got lost early on and never quite caught up, which made the further explanations even more confusing (hmm…sounds like what happens to me in math classes).

-Pop culture. This book had a fair amount of pop culture references, which is fine, except it makes me think that in a few years, it will feel really dated. Like, they talk about the show “Jon and Kate Plus 8”--who’s even going to remember that show in five years?

-Male protagonist. Already explained this one.

-Length. Okay, admittedly this book wasn’t THAT long (352 pages), but the mix of male protagonist plus all the confusing time travel stuff just made it feel longer to me. I had to push myself to get through the last third.

So…yeah. This book. I feel like it’s probably better than I give it credit for. I’m more of a fan of whiney teenage girl books, and this was a male-centered plot-based book, so we just didn’t click. Judging from the ratings on GoodReads, most people liked it more than I did. So if you’re more of a fan of this type of book, give it a shot when it comes out in January.