Format: ARC, 334 pages
Genre: Young Adult, Science Fiction, Romance
Published January 17th, 2012 by St. Martin's Griffin
Amazon | Barnes & Noble | The Book Depository
Rating: 4 out of 5
Summary from Goodreads:Hooray for my FINALLY reading my first book of 2012! I heard some mixed things about this one, so I was surprised by much I liked it :) Looking at other people's reviews, it seems like a love-it-or-hate-it book... I'm glad to be part of the love-it group!
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.
I really liked how it was written from a guy's POV, it's been a while since I've read one! I thought the author did a pretty good job at writing in first person from the opposite sex. Jackson was a great protagonist, he was relatable and really matured throughout the book. He starts off as a typical, immature teenager and by the end he learns about self sacrifice and not taking things for granted. And I liked how Jackson and Holly are technically in college, since most of the YA books I've read are based more in high school and the 15-18 age range.
While I thought the first half of the book was a bit on the slow side, it really got better for me once I became more attached to the characters. Even though the entire book is pretty action packed, in the beginning you don't really know the characters that well, so it's kind of hard to 100% care about what is happening. And for some reason in the beginning, although Jackson's journal entries helped to fill in some of the gaps, I felt like it was a bit unnecessary and kind of interrupted the flow of the story.
I thought the way time travelling is done in this book was unique, although a bit confusing at times. Which is to be expected since I'm not a big science person, and I suppose if time travelling was simple we'd have figured it out already. However, once I kind of ignored the technicality of all of it and focused on the story, I really loved it! I don't read a whole lot of sci-fi, especially sci-fi with a lot of romance, but I'll definitely be on the lookout for now on!
Overall, I thought Tempest was a fantastic debut by Julie Cross, and I'll definitely be reading her future books!
Also check out an excerpt of the audiobook provided by the awesome people at Macmillan Audio! I really love the guy who does the voice for Jackson, he's exactly how Jackson sounded in my head!
