Lila's Lair

As much as I love that time isn't constructed as a linear 'progression of cause to effect' in the story, I felt that most of All Our Yesterdays - not just the construction of time - was a little wibbly wobbly.

Generally speaking, I'm not a big fan of time travelling; so All Our Yesterdays sat better with me than it could have. However, I kept swinging to and fro in my opinions on this novel. At some points I really liked it and really got into the characters. At other times I just wanted to fall asleep or bump off certain characters so that I wouldn't have to hear about them anymore. Perhaps I'm a tad cold and heartless, but  I really wanted Em to get her job over and done with.

Seriously… if I could, I would have pushed her aside and done it myself. I know. I'm a terrible person.

Admittedly, that would have probably cut the book down by half it's length. Oh well.

Regardless, this novel started off really strong. It gave me enough information to stir my curiosity and allow me to relate to Em, while still giving me several questions that I wanted answered. As mentioned above, the there were some good concepts surrounding time travel - how it works, how it was used, and the different perspectives on it's efficacy. I also really liked the Em / Marina connection. It wasn't completely unexpected, but I feel it worked really well (even though I absolutely can't stand Marina). All in all, those from the future had a lot more integrity than most of the characters from the past. They were more interesting and I wanted to know more about their relationships and situation. The characters from the past I really didn't care that much about, except Nate.

This book certainly wasn't perfect for me though. Certain scenes were drawn out and all the characters I liked were ruined in one way or another.

Admittedly there were characters I was supposed to care about, and I really didn't. Other details, such as the seizures were flaky.

Hopefully they're better explained in the next installment. I also really wanted to see Em and Finn have a bit more in the romance area. Near the end, everything went downhill. Then, I thought they were going to pick up. Alas… it all turned into a black hole of crushed doom and made me rather bitter.

Criticisms aside, I did enjoy this book. I just wasn't thrilled with it.