Why I Love Time Travel Books!

                                   (I think you can click on the picture to look up close)

I was digging through photographs and started to think about time travel and why I like books with that element. And... it's because of my Great Great Grandmother Rosa Flavilla Palacios! I have a horrible obsession with the past and my genealogy. Growing up I didn't look like anybody. Everyone commented on it and I always felt as if I must have been dropped on the door step. I started doing research on my family, most particularly my Mother's father who wasn't in her life much and I'd only met a handful of times - that is when I came across Rosa. There is an obvious resemblance. And finally, I looked like someone! I wasn't the long lost daughter of -insert someone cool-. I went to Colorado a couple years ago to find out more and look through her belongings and I found out, not only do we look alike, but we have similar tastes. She had this huge scrapbook full of lyrics and poems she loved, advertisements she collected, stories she had written, letters she received, knitting patterns she wrote down. Well, I'm a failure at knitting, but you should see all my old notebooks from growing up - filled with lyrics, poems and stories. Isn't that crazy? How someone you may have never known about and seems so far back in the past was so genetically influencing?

I'd do anything, literally anything, to go back in time and meet her and be BFFs.

Which leads to my love of time travel books. I find it fascinating and I really wish I had the ability. In fact, that's what I want for Christmas. K, thanks. I think it also leads to my obsession with history. I think love for history and genealogy may be intertwined, just because they fit well together. 

So, what era would you travel to? Who would you want to meet if you could?

Hourglass (Hourglass #1) by Myra McEntire

Hourglass (Hourglass #1) by Myra McEntire

Buy This Book | Website

Release Date: June 14th 2011

Publisher: Egmont USA

Page Count: Hardcover, 397 pages

Genre: Young Adult, Paranormal, Romance

For seventeen-year-old Emerson Cole, life is about seeing what isn’t there: swooning Southern Belles; soldiers long forgotten; a haunting jazz trio that vanishes in an instant. Plagued by phantoms since her parents’ death, she just wants the apparitions to stop so she can be normal. She’s tried everything, but the visions keep coming back.So when her well-meaning brother brings in a consultant from a secretive organization called the Hourglass, Emerson’s willing to try one last cure. But meeting Michael Weaver may not only change her future, it may change her past.Who is this dark, mysterious, sympathetic guy, barely older than Emerson herself, who seems to believe every crazy word she says? Why does an electric charge seem to run through the room whenever he’s around? And why is he so insistent that he needs her help to prevent a death that never should have happened?Full of atmosphere, mystery, and romance, Hourglass merges the very best of the paranormal and science-fiction genres in a seductive, remarkable young adult debut. - Good Reads

I remember the first time I saw the cover of this book I knew I had to read it. It's gorgeous. It has this haunting feel to it that just sucked me in. I didn't give a crap what it was about, I just knew I had to read it. Then I found out there was time travel involved and I was done for. So, for me Hourglass had two amazing things to live up to. Luckily, it didn't disappoint!

I liked Emerson quite a bit. So often times in paranormal books the heroine finds out something is unusual about herself and accepts it without much of a hitch. In Hourglass, we find Emerson already knowing her ability to a certain extent and she has learned to live with it. She had already been through a stay at a mental institution resulting after a breakdown from all the stress on her shoulders. So she's a realistic girl. She is weak, but not too weak. She has her strength. I think that is one of the things I liked most about her. She's balanced.

The love story was good. I felt it paced itself for a while and then escalated quickly. Teetering on the edge of a little too quickly. I guess it just seemed as if it started out nice and slow and then suddenly escalated to "I love you long time". I think that may be because I feel so used to the drawn out tension and attraction that is usually in books. It wasn't eye roll worthy by any means, but it didn't exactly capture me like it probably could have. I still liked it though and I awww'd a few times.

The plot kept me on my toes and there were a lot of twists and turns I didn't anticipate. The writing was well thought out and the style of writing appealed to me.

Overall, I liked this quite a bit. And I think it's unfair to have to wait until 2012 to read the next book. I'm horribly impatient.

Timeless by Alexandra Monir

Timeless by Alexandra Monir

Buy This Book | Website

Release Date: January 11th 2011

Publisher: Delacorte Books for Young Readers

Page Count: Hardcover, 304 pages

Genre: Young Adult, Paranormal, Time Travel

When tragedy strikes Michele Windsor’s world, she is forced to uproot her life and move across the country to New York City, to live with the wealthy, aristocratic grandparents she’s never met. In their old Fifth Avenue mansion filled with a century’s worth of family secrets, Michele discovers a diary that hurtles her back in time to the year 1910. There, in the midst of the glamorous Gilded Age, Michele meets the young man with striking blue eyes who has haunted her dreams all her life – a man she always wished was real, but never imagined could actually exist. And she finds herself falling for him, into an otherworldly, time-crossed romance.

Michele is soon leading a double life, struggling to balance her contemporary high school world with her escapes into the past. But when she stumbles upon a terrible discovery, she is propelled on a race through history to save the boy she loves – a quest that will determine the fate of both of their lives. - Good Reads

 
This book started out really, really good. I identified with the main character Michele, she was a very likeable character. I love the subject of time travel and it's one of my favourite genres. I was also very intrigued by the dreams and the boy in them. Then the book just went downhill. In a dive. A deep dive. It felt sloppy. Storylines that should have been a little more detailed or thought out a little bit better were quickly patched up without much emotional closure. I was also disappointed with the ending, though there did seem to be a spark of hope. The descriptions of New York were spot-on and very well researched. But yet again, I just wish the author could have researched and put more effort into the characters and the storylines. There apparently will be a sequel, which I will definitely have to read, just to see if it gets any better. I think this could just turn out to be a first in a series that isn't too good because it doesn't stand alone well and you'll end up appreciating it a little more as you read on into the series. Let's hope so! I'll definitely be buying the next book and hoping it wraps things up more.