The Psychology of Time Travel by Kate Mascarenhas
My rating: 2 of 5 stars
I won’t drag this out. This book just did not work for me.
I was kindly sent a copy by the publisher to read and review, which I truly appreciate. I accepted the title because it sounded like something that would be right up my alley.
I went in, rightly or wrongly, with the following beliefs: the story was Science Fiction, that it followed a group of female scientists who discovered how to successfully travel through time, that a murder happens and they use said time travel abilities to solve it.
What I got was sort of that.
I would say this is a Literary Fiction novel with a few characters who happen to be scientists and where time travel is used as plot device to tie different parts of the story together.
Okay, fine. That’s great, so it wasn’t what I initially expected. I can usually get over that fairly quickly.
The execution of the story, however, for me, was not good.
I generally enjoy multiple perspectives, and even multiple timelines, but here, it jumped around so much, to so many different characters, none of whom felt distinctive in any way, I couldn’t remember who I was reading from or where I was in time.
The chapters were really short, so you were never in a particular perspective long enough for it to have a lasting impact.
On a lot of occasions, I find that short chapters help to increase the pace of the story and the rate in which you read it. Not so here. This was incredibly slow. It just never really went anywhere.
Then I get to the last page, the last paragraph and am left scratching my head. That’s it?
So, yeah, not for me, but it may be for you. This book has numerous positive reviews, so please do not take my word for it. Pick it up and find out for yourself. Will you or won’t you?
Thank you so much to the publisher, Crooked Lane Books, for providing me with a copy of this to read and review. I appreciate the opportunity to provide my opinion.