{Blog Tour} Book Review: Untimed - Andy Gavin

Hey everyone! Welcome to my stop for the Untimed blog tour. You can follow the tour here.

Title: Untimed

Author: Andy Gavin

Release Date: December 17th 2012

Publisher: Mascherato

Source: finished print copy for blog tour

Goodreads | Amazon | Barnes & Noble | iBooks | Kobo

Charlie’s the kind of boy that no one notices. Hell, even his own mother can’t remember his name. And girls? The invisible man gets more dates.

As if that weren’t enough, when a mysterious clockwork man tries to kill him in modern day Philadelphia, and they tumble through a hole into 1725 London, Charlie realizes even the laws of time don’t take him seriously.

Still, this isn’t all bad. In fact, there’s this girl, another time traveler, who not only remembers his name, but might even like him! Unfortunately, Yvaine carries more than her share of baggage: like a baby boy and at least two ex-boyfriends! One’s famous, the other’s murderous, and Charlie doesn’t know who is the bigger problem.

When one kills the other — and the other is nineteen year-old Ben Franklin — things get really crazy. Can their relationship survive? Can the future? Charlie and Yvaine are time travelers, they can fix this — theoretically — but the rules are complicated and the stakes are history as we know it.

And there's one more wrinkle: he can only travel into the past, and she can only travel into the future!

Charlie Horologe had been ignored his whole life. Worse than shunned, he was always being forgotten. Even his own mother couldn't remember his name. One day, he snuck out of a boring museum field trip—no worries, his teachers would notice the missing student but wouldn't even think of him—and got attacked by a man who ran on clockwork, gears, wheels and all. That alone was weird, but falling into a hole that brought them back in time sure took the cake.

Untimed is the book that all the 'How to Write a Novel' guides I've read were talking about. Immediate conflict? Check. Interesting main character? Check. Memorable setting? Well, Untimed had more than one and, in the characters' perspectives, it changed from 1725 London to new-modern Philadelphia to altered China in less than a minute. It couldn't get more memorable than that.

Reading Untimed was like going on one crazy adventure. Remember when Harry and Hermione had to go back in time to save Buckbeak and Sirius? It was like that, but with the future of the entire world at stake and more than one Time-Turner because in here, there were whole generations of time travelers, thanks to the time-travel gene being hereditary.

Like I mentioned above, Charlie was an interesting main character, but he wasn't just that; he was also endearing. I couldn't help but root for him to succeed against his numerous adversaries because he had a kind heart and a sharp mind. He was sometimes rash and impatient like most kids his age, but he always had good intentions behind every action.

The one thing I didn't like was the bit of insta-love that Charlie had for Yvaine—just a bit, because she didn't reciprocate his feelings at first, which made Charlie even more like a lovesick puppy. He thought she was special because having been used to being constantly unseen, she saw him, when he knew very well that that was a time traveler thing. But don't worry, it got better soon enough.

The writing was atmospheric and straight-to-the-point, making the book descriptive yet fast-paced. I loved how the author put a lot of unique twists to time travel while keeping his historical facts straight as much as possible. And although harsh and action-packed, Untimed also had me laughing with its humor.

Yvaine stands. "The first time is the hardest." She points right at my crotch.

I glance down. Truth be told, I'm pretty sore—

She punches my shoulder. "Openin' a time-hole, you dolt."

And did I mention it's quite sexy, too?

Between this real page-turner, there were several lovely illustrations that solidified the visualizations in my head and gave more life to the story. But damn, I would've loved to see Charlie's face during the ending, which was satisfying but left me wanting more.

MY FAVORITE PART was, hmm, this is hard... but I'll go with the ending just because it really surprised me!

RATING:

   

About the author: 
Andy Gavin is an unstoppable storyteller who studied for his Ph.D. at M.I.T. and founded video game developer Naughty Dog, Inc. at the age of fifteen, serving as co-president for two decades. There he created, produced, and directed over a dozen video games, including the award winning and best selling Crash Bandicoot and Jak & Daxter franchises, selling over 40 million units worldwide. He sleeps little, reads novels and histories, watches media obsessively, travels, and of course, writes.

Facebook | Twitter | Pinterest | Goodreads | Wikipedia