I am shocked to see how highly rated this book is tbh. Aside from the fact that the paradoxes are never explored, let alone explained, the lack of worldbuilding was so striking. I find this to be the case with many contemporary so called fantasy books which prioritise romance over the fantasy aspect.

I didn't buy the romance either. I think the book was trying to break gender stereotypes but it actually reinforced them all all the same. If there is an attempt to go beyond stereotypical behaviours, this book failed at it miserably. Anyway... The romance... Why should I care about them? Both Una and Owen felt so extremely shallow. Don't get me wrong, I think there was serious potential in their respective developments in theory but the execution was horrible. Owen's relationship with his father could be a killer of a dynamic but nope, it had to take a backseat. And the thing is, I think the author tried to do something with it but the issue is the author was trying to do so many things all at once. Romance, determinism, time travel, racism, xenophobia... Yes, these themes can be explored simultaneously but they weren't explored. They were simply packed and branded and displayed on a shelf. What I'm trying to say, I guess, is that this book was so much 'tell' and not at all 'show'. Like, let me deduce what is being worked here ok???

The prose started off quite well but got old very quickly because it was trying to be so dramatic all the time. I rolled my eyes so many times because sometimes when I read certain sentences, all that played inside my head was those booktok videos.

Anyway... I can't comment on anyone's taste, if you enjoyed this book, I'm glad you found something you enjoyed.

Quality-wise, this simply is not it.