Review: TEMPEST--Julie Cross

Tempest by Julie Cross
January 17, 2012
St. Martin's Griffin
Young Adult | Science Fiction
First in a Trilogy
Pages: 352 (not enough pages! I WANT MORE!)
Source/Format: NetGalley/eGalley
Author's Website | Amazon | Barnes & Noble | IndieBound


The year is 2009.  Nineteen-year-old Jackson Meyer is a normal guy… he’s in college, has a girlfriend… and he can travel back through time. But it’s not like the movies – nothing changes in the present after his jumps, there’s no space-time continuum issues or broken flux capacitors – it’s just harmless fun.

That is… until the day strangers burst in on Jackson and his girlfriend, Holly, and during a struggle with Jackson, Holly is fatally shot. In his panic, Jackson jumps back two years to 2007, but this is not like his previous time jumps. Now he’s stuck in 2007 and can’t get back to the future.

Desperate to somehow return to 2009 to save Holly but unable to return to his rightful year, Jackson settles into 2007 and learns what he can about his abilities.

But it’s not long before the people who shot Holly in 2009 come looking for Jackson in the past, and these “Enemies of Time” will stop at nothing to recruit this powerful young time-traveler.  Recruit… or kill him.

Piecing together the clues about his father, the Enemies of Time, and himself, Jackson must decide how far he’s willing to go to save Holly… and possibly the entire world.

REVIEW:

Tempest is the book being buzzed about in the YA blogosphere. I’d jump whenever I saw somebody talking about it, reading about it, Julie Cross talking about it… I wanted to read this book and I would make time travel to the future possible in order to read the book right now.

October, 2011 I found out it was on NetGalley. I requested and squealed three days later when I was accepted. I’d read the first four chapters and dying to know what came next.

Guys, this book is going to blow you away. It is so amazing. Like I don’t even…

So, you know how time travel is all “you go into the past and spit on somebody’s head, that changes the future”? Not in Cross’ world. Nope. It’s “you go into the past and you piss somebody off because you don’t remember she’s in your economics class, for god’s sake” you can go back to the future (aka “home base”) and stroll up to that girl and say, “hey, aren’t you in economics with me?” and she’ll smile and say, “yeah.” SHE WON’T REMEMBER ANYTHING.

And then things get complicated as Jackson learns his time travel abilities when he’s stuck in 2007. I want to crawl into Julie Cross’ head because of how complex the time travel is in this book. (Is that creepy?)

What I loved the most is Jackson and 007 Holly. 007 Holly and 009 Holly are so different, but I loved how Jackson got to know 007 Holly. (And if you have no idea what I mean, you should probably read the book, yeah?) Their talks I loved. It was like falling in love with somebody all over again.

The emotion—oh, guys, the emotion. I haven’t felt this connected to a story and the characters in a really long time. And yeah, I’ll admit, the ending made me cry. I was sobbing as I finished it because how could he do that?!

I need the sequel right now. I need the entire trilogy right now. I guess I need to make a friend like Adam and learn how to time travel to the future…

Uh, I recommend to the INFINITE. Er… yeah. I don’t care if you don’t read sci-fi or time travel novels. You have to read this book. Push aside your to-read pile and run to the bookstore on January 17. You won’t regret it.