Released: 1st August 2013
Series: All Our Yesterdays #1Genre: YA Science Fiction
Source: Bought
Pages: 362
My Rating: 3 of 5 stars
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Em is locked in a bare, cold cell with no comforts. Finn is in the cell next door. The Doctor is keeping them there until they tell him what he wants to know. Trouble is, what he wants to know hasn't happened yet.
Em and Finn have a shared past, but no future unless they can find a way out. The present is torture - being kept apart, overhearing each other's anguish as the Doctor relentlessly seeks answers.
There's no way back from here, to what they used to be, the world they used to know. Then Em finds a note in her cell which changes everything. It's from her future self and contains some simple but very clear instructions. Em must travel back in time to avert a tragedy that's about to unfold. Worse, she has to pursue and kill the boy she loves to change the future.
There's no way back from here, to what they used to be, the world they used to know. Then Em finds a note in her cell which changes everything. It's from her future self and contains some simple but very clear instructions. Em must travel back in time to avert a tragedy that's about to unfold. Worse, she has to pursue and kill the boy she loves to change the future.
All Our Yesterdays definitely had its good moments, but overall the hype didn't quite deliver for me. I really wanted to love this one, I went in to it with an open mind expecting lots of awesome time-travel action, and while there was some of this:
There was a lot more focus on the relationships with the characters, some romance, and moments like this:
To be honest, even now I'm not quite sure what to make of the ending. For the whole of the book there was tension around the evil Doctor and Em/Finn's mission to bring him down through their past selves. Though I found this to be a really interesting concept that left a lot of room for suspense, all the missed opportunities seemed to drag the storyline unnecessarily and there were some slow parts which I just wanted to wade through to see what exciting development would occur next. By the end, I can see where there will be room for a second book, though at least a little resolution would have been nice to tie the story together and give some point to everything that had happened during the story.
That being said, although the 'thriller' aspect didn't really pick up until the last quarter, the characters throughout were quite well developed. It was good to see how Em and Marina, along with the two Finn's had their similarities and differences in the past and the future. Because of the switching time-frames and stilted plot at times they were a bit difficult to connect to, though at the end I could tell that Em had learnt some things about herself and what type of person she really wanted to be; no matter what time she existed in. Other characters like James were more complicated, and though I can't see how his developments exactly turned him into his future version, the humanity behind his actions could be understood to an extent in his earlier years.
FINAL THOUGHTS
Overall, although All Our Yesterdays didn't quite tick all the boxes, I'm still glad that I gave it a go. I will be looking out for the sequel, because there have definitely been some questions raised here which need answers!
Hm, I've also heard all the hype around this book, I still haven't read it for that reason. Sounds like it didn't fully deliver the elements you wanted from it. I do like a character driven novel so maybe I'll like it more? Nice review!
ReplyDeleteI think it may have been because my expectations were too high and I thought there was going to be a bit more focus on the actual time travel, but if you do like novels which focus more on the characters than the action then I'd still recommend giving it a try. Thanks for stopping by Alise :)
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