Buckle up because this is a long review!

I had high hopes for this book, but I should have adjusted my expectations at the very beginning when the narrator says, “You’re probably wondering how time travel works. Well I’m here to tell you, don’t worry about it.” My biggest pet peeve in sci-fi and time travel specifically is when the author doesn’t bother to try to make up rules for it or at least technobabble their way through it. The, “time travel works but don’t worry how, just trust me,” immediately makes it harder for me to suspend disbelief. My hot take is that if your time travel is central to the plot but it’s logically inconsistent and unexplained, you shouldn’t write time travel. It ends up feeling like a shortcut for the author to do whatever they want whenever they want to instead of actually building a coherent narrative.

I understand why people call this a fan fiction. Besides the male love interest being based on a real person, the story is self indulgent in a way that I don’t fault in fan fiction but I absolutely judge in published fiction. The author’s note at the end mentions that the book started just for enjoyment and to be shared with a few friends and I can absolutely see that. There are a lot of loose ends and under developed aspects that the editors should have helped the author flesh out before allowing this to be published.

With that said, I have a laundry list of complaints I have about this book, so be warned, spoilers past this point!

Time travel mechanics

• They’ve been taken out of time physically, how does them mentally being in their time affect their readings? What is their “hereness/thereness”?
• Why does an expat have to die for people to go back home? The logic of how many people the time door can support is never explained at all. (Unless I missed it?)
• Where did the time door come from? Who made it? It’s existence and creation and use seems to be some sort of weird paradoxical time loop which is something that really needs to be explained.
• Apparently different timelines are a thing? Again, why is this not explained? If you go back in time and create a new timeline how can you possibly ever navigate back to your original timeline? What’s the purpose of going back in time just to create an alternate time line? These are all interesting questions that I expect a book about time travel to address!

Narrator is dumb af

• Working with time travel but when Graham sees some kind of weird futuristic tech she assumes it must be a game system or umbrella?
• The Brigadier said something about the narrator’s time readings but she doesn’t think anything of it? It’s like a throw away line! I get that she was getting shot at at the time, but honestly, I’m pretty sure she would have ignored it in any situation.
• The narrator is always mentioning Adela’s reconstructive surgery and how strange she looks. Again. You’re working in the Ministry of Time and you don’t think this strangeness might be related?

Just weird

• Why would time travelers be put up to live with workers who are then basically working 24/7?
• Surely they would have been trained on appropriate/inappropriate relations with the expats? The whole set up with expats living with their bridges and being so vulnerable and reliant on them seems rife for abuses of power and inappropriate relationships. (As we see in Graham’s reaction later in the story. Surely mc should have foreseen his feelings of betrayal?!)
• In general, I don’t really get the romance between the narrator and Graham. They don’t seem to have any chemistry. There was much more chemistry between Graham and Arthur or the narrator and Maggie in my opinion. Their feelings seem to spring from being basically locked in together and becoming codependent to an unhealthy degree, which I do not find romantic.
• The romantic/sexual scenes also were just not my taste. I generally don’t read a lot of spice and when I do it tends to be queer, so maybe this cis/straight romance was just not for me. “He rolled my nipple between his fingers like a rosary bead.” Or whatever the line was just sounds horrible. Ouch? Most of the sex seems just seemed… awkward.
• Arthur being interested in “women’s work” being portrayed as unusual and the narrator not knowing how to encourage him. Lots of men are teachers, nurses, chefs, bakers, etc. sure a lot of those fields may have more women but in London at this time it’s not strange for a man!
• To my knowledge, all the expats except Graham are completely fictional. Why is Graham based on a real person? Just seems like a weird choice.
• The narrator not having a name also seems like a weird choice. Like an attempt at a version of y/n fic that would be appropriate for publishing?
• 9/11 stuff apparently radicalizing Graham so that he becomes an anti-immigrant facist? Why is this glossed over? 9/11 was used and is still used as an excuse to destroy the Middle East and murder civilians without any self reflection on what sort of desperation and US manipulation literally caused it?! This could have been such a good point of discussion and analysis for people’s real reactions to 9/11 but it just kept getting brushed over?!
• The politics of this book in general are just all over the place. We have a narrator who seems to have no curiosity or political opinions of her own, a facist future version of her, a more politically left leaning coworker who constantly seems like the only competent person in the whole story, and a bunch of time travelers from the past who are rebuilding their identities. It strange parody of politics and refusal to dive into any real depth around politics or opinions makes me think the author is probably also just apolitical and a bit clueless without any strong opinions of her own? It all seems very superficial and not very well thought out. If there was supposed to be a message, I must have missed it.

I’m sure I’m missing things but I’m going to stop here. Overall, think book probabaly should have been a goofy time travel romance. The complete lack of care towards the actual concept of time travel ands its logistics and repercussion, along with a disregard for the political issues raised was really frustrating. This may be enjoyable for someone who doesn’t typically read sci-fi/time travel, but I wouldn’t recommend it to anyone who enjoys the genre.

I gave enjoyment 5 stars because the audio book is incredible. Joel de la Fuente and Lee Osorio did excellent jobs. I think, though, that if I had used my eyeballs for this I would have checked out/mostly been annoyed.

The plot is pretty basic, the characters largely tropes, and the twist pretty obvious. The found family is mostly theoretical, the love languishes under some really unexplored dynamics that aren't great, and this is a bit slow. Our main man here also has just, not a single drop of urgency to be found anywhere, which was a little hard to get through.

This doesn't hold up if you look too closely at it, but as a fun quick read it was a good time. The writing itself is quite gorgeous, with some really beautiful, poignant, and romantic lines and emotional moments. Kelley obviously put a lot of time and care into establishing an accurate time period as well, which makes me interested in checking out more from them!