Review - "Timekeeper"

Timekeeper Timekeeper #1
by Tara Sim
rating:☆☆☆☆
published: 1st November 2016
spoilers? no

Goodreads

Galley provided by publisher

Timekeeper was one of my most anticipated reads this year, and it definitely does not disappoint. It's an unusual mix of mythology and alternate universe history and fantasy, but it works together so well, and the whole thing goes off without a hitch.

Timekeeper tells the story of Danny, a clock mechanic in a world where specially trained mechanics who can see and manipulate the threads of time are the only ones trusted to protect and repair the clocks which allow the world to run smoothly, whose father has been stuck in a town for three years after the central cog of the clock disappeared and time Stopped. Just over two years later, Danny was repairing a clock when a bomb went off, leaving him injured, and the story picks up just as he's getting back into work.

Sent out to repair the clock tower at Enfield, Danny meets a mysterious boy who turns out to be the clock spirit. As the clock keeps breaking, Danny is sent there time and again to repair it and he and the clock spirit, Colton, form a bond. All the while, Danny is agitating to join the crew in charge of building a new clock tower in the town where his father is stuck, in the hopes that it will restart time. But someone is going round destroying other clock towers, and Danny comes under suspicion.

This book is a unique mix of genres, and that's what first captures your attention as the reader. It's perhaps a little hard to understand the world, because it's more than just an alternative Victorian era. It has thrown into it a whole different history and mythology behind the creation of time, and is also a bit more modern than you might it expect. To be honest, the more modern alternative universe kind of threw me for a while, but the author's note at the end clears it up. It's a very well constructed world and eminently believable, as are all the characters.

If there was one thing that made me not give this 5 stars, it's that it was actually kind of slow for the first 60% or so. It almost dawdles along, with Colton and Danny getting together (which is cute and all, don't get me wrong, if a little underdeveloped maybe?) before suddenly bursting into action for the last third.

But with world set up and the characters all well-established, I have high hopes for book two.

Review - "Something In Between"

Something In Between
by Melissa de la Cruz
rating:☆☆☆
published: 6th October 2016
spoilers? a bit

Goodreads

Galley provided by publisher

For me, this book suffered simply because I wasn't in the mood for it when I first started reading it. I'd come off the back of two really good murder mysteries and so that's what I wanted to read. And then I hit a reading slump which did not help this book's case. I thought maybe if I made myself read this book, it'd work some magic and get rid of the reluctance I felt about reading it. That was not the case.

My major issue, and probably the reason I didn't enjoy this book as much as I wanted to, was that I didn't like the writing style. On occasion, it felt stilted and the speech sometimes felt a little unrealistic - there were a couple of points where a character felt like a mouthpiece for an information dump, but that I understand given the topic of the book, and its likely audience. It was the parts where it wasn't an info dump, where the speech appeared a bit contrived, though thankfully these numbered not that many.

Another problem I found was that the romance between Royce and Jasmine was just a little on the wrong side of instalove for my liking. They meet once, exchange numbers straightaway (if someone came up to you and said you're pretty, can I have your number - or something along those lines - would you say yes?), text for a bit, and the next time they meet they're kissing. That being said, they were cute, so I can mostly forgive the instalove. But then there was also the seemingly constant "get together followed by break up and Jasmine hurting Royce followed by a get together then they break up again and the cycle repeats" going on. (I exaggerate, it only happened twice.) And also the "knowing she's the One" thing. Hmm.

The book dragged a little too much for me to fully like it - the only part where I wasn't counting the pages go by was about 70 pages from the end where all of a sudden I got into it - which was frustrating. There were parts of it I would rate 3 or 4 stars, but these interspersed parts where it was too slow for me and I would rate it 2 or maybe even 1 stars. That being said, I would still rec it, because it's an important book and story.