Author: Luke Hill
Genre: SciFi/Action/Suspense/Thriller
Book Rating: 7
Personal Rating: 9
What to say about this book. I couldn't put it down. I really enjoyed reading this novel. The action was great. Use of familiar things like the MIB seemed in place instead of overused and cliched. And the main characters were well developed stayed in character and came out at a different place than expect from where they started. And it's real. As in people die. I won't tell you who but in the real world everyone does not always live.
Serena was great A news reporter on the rise willing to do anything to get behind a desk and off the streets. When Jonathan a man claiming to be from 1000 years in the future lands in her lap the opportunity was just too good to Miss. What I like about her is that her motives for helping him are believable. She wants to advance in her career. Who doesn't? And she's a bit in it for herself. So she's selfish, we can't all be perfect. I like that she questions why she even bothers when it becomes apparent that being with Jonathan can only lead to her death. More importantly she finds out that some of the things she looked down upon before her life went upside down she actually appreciated and loved. She grew as a person which is awesome.
Jonathan, well he's the reason Serena grew. There was something about he's genuine innocence that slowly brought her around to believing he was from the future. He's easy to love because he has never seen the real sun. The moon. Trees. He's lived underground with fake UV lights for his entire existence. So occasionally he stops and stares in awe and his wonder at the world we live in is infectious and makes us appreciate something as simple as crunching leaves falling from a tree. His greatest moment was sitting behind a computer and trying to touch the screen not knowing that he had to use the keyboard. And there are no books in the future. That i can understand that the book burned and became extinct rare and valuable. But what bugs me about that is even now every book I own I can find online. So if they still have computers, in 1000 years. Hell in the next 100 most news reports, books, magazine articles, hell a plethora of information would be online. I could've just missed something but I assumed they would have more than enough past history to reflect on. Even videos as there would be online computer versions. All that being said, i loved his fascination with books. Especially that he could actually take them away and read them. Mostly because I'm a book nerd and all people should read. Honestly the real world is too drab to not try to escape in someone else's world sometimes.
The MIB. Always used. Seems standard SciFi fare except I liked it. Didn't roll my eyes at the secret operatives. And the Operative Smith, why always smith, it be nice if they actually named a MIB something besides smith. In any case he had depth. His genuine anger and frustration at Jonathan and Serena slipping out of his grasp drew him to the brink of madness. It was brilliant. The action of the heroes out running him kept you on edge. You always thought that smith would be coming around the bend at any moment. Very well played.
The pacing was excellent. It slowed down when it should. Sped up at the right moments. And smacked you in the face with intense action just when you thought things might be working out for our two heroes. Seriously I can't say I did not enjoy this book. So why a seven out of ten you might ask. The ending. An ending can make or break a book and I kind of saw this one coming.
Warning. The following is a plot spoiler. Quite possibly a big one:
Through the entire book Serena keeps asking Jonathan what makes him so sure she is the one to help him. She has her doubts in the beginning because she's actually planing to dump him. He actually looks completely crest fallen when she admits she's going so far then he's on his own. Like there is no way she can't be the one. He insists on saying he just knows. As the book goes on even though no clues are dropped as to how he just knows, I just assumed there could only be one way he would know it's her. So jump to the end she ends up being transported to the future without him, years ahead of when she should've been there and she realises he knew because it was her that mentored him in Jonathan's own future. This proves of course that the events of the book happened at least once. Other wise how the hell would Jonathan known for sure that she would help. He even told her it was always her before sending her off in the time travel machine.
Why this is a problem. He acts like he only knows her from the news footage of the day he was sent back in time to. He says that's how they knew to come back here because it was one of the few recorded pieces of information from the past they had. In actuality they knew to go back there because she was sending Jonathan back to herself at the same time he had already been sent there. Yet he never once behaves in such a way that he has been giving the information about what happened when he landed the first time. If indeed this is the third round and the whole book was the second round. (i cant use my brain to prove how many more times it's happened accept for the three that occur in the book) why would she not give him any info on what happened when he met her. In fact at the end of the book she specifically says she gave him all the details to prevent the failure which is the smart thing to do. Yet if she was smart enough to do it at the end of the book, why wasn't she smart enough to it the first time.
She already knows who the scientist that helps them is. If she would've gave Jonathan the name and him to tell her past self this is where they need to go this entire book wouldn't have happened. And we know it was her because he says it was always here, and she confirms this in the future when she says it was always here. So there's no getting around it. At the beginning of the book it was here who sent him back to her past self. Yet Jonathan knew nothing about her other that she was a news reporter, and that she was also his mentor in the present after he had failed the mission to save earth and ended up sending her instead. She didn't give him any information at all about the weeks they spent together in the past so that they could avoid making the same mistakes, yet she had the presence of mind to do it at the end of the book. I couldn't wrap my hand around her knowingly sending him in the past with the full details that led him to failure and he doesn't have a single blip of that stored in his memory. All he knows is they are the same person living thousands of years apart due to time travel.
So yeah that kinda lost a lot of plot points for me. I just can't buy that she was the one to send him back and would not give him details on what went down when they met in her present which would be the past for Jonathan. Yes if he would've known the entire book wouldn't have happened, but it's clear the author knows Serena isn't stupid enough not to give him the information at the end of the book, so why was she stupid enough not to give it to him at the beginning before sending Jonathon back in time. It just doesn't make sense other than it was needed to make the book work that Jonathan be completely oblivious to what went on when he met her before.
So was the book perfect. Pretty much. It was brilliant. One of those page turners that i was angry to see end. It was an excellent read. Excellently executed. Well defined characters. This book could do no wrong. That is until the end. Maybe I"m just too touchy. Maybe I'm a bit mean. Lord knows I wouldn't even give my own novel a ten on the book rating and if i didn't write it myself It would get a 7.5 on the personal rating whereas I gave this one a 9. But yeah. Not being able to wrap any logical sense around the ending is, even in movies, more than enough depending on how ridiculous it is to knock a rating down a few points. The beginning and the end are the shortest and most important parts of a book and sadly for me this end just took me of my high in the cloud state of euphoria and crashed me down to a well that's underwhelming state of disappointment.
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