Our Score:★★★★★★✩✩✩✩
GENRE: Fantasy
Selected by Nic -June 2018
SYNOPSIS:
If you could change the past, would you?
Thirty years ago, something terrible happened to Luna’s mother. Something she’s only prepared to reveal after her death.
Now Luna and her sister have a chance to go back to their mother’s birthplace and settle her affairs. But in Brooklyn they find more questions than answers, until something impossible – magical – happens to Luna, and she meets her mother as a young woman back in the summer of 1977.
At first Luna’s thinks she’s going crazy, but if she can truly travel back in time, she can change things. But in doing anything – everything – to save her mother’s life, will she have to sacrifice her own?
(Synopsis taken from Goodreads)
REVIEW: (Contains spoilers)
Gemma's Thoughts:
A very bizarre novel. Reading the synopsis I was initially drawn to the book, how interesting would it be to go back in time and see your mother or father in their youth? Now although time-travel doesn't scare me away from a novel I don't particularly enjoy the science fiction genre as a whole and in regards to the book I found it a bit too far-fetched. I did enjoy the sections when she stepped back in time but found the way she returned to present day very weird. I liked the setting and the links with the 1970s. The concept of saving her mothers life and in return sacrificing her own was a good dilemma that made me want to keep on reading to find out the outcome. Overall I enjoyed reading the majority of the book but it didn't wow me.
Emma's Thoughts:
It was ok! Not great, but ok! The concept of the story was interesting in a 'Time Traveller's Wife' kind of way and I did find myself wanting to read the next chapter to see what would happen... and trying to guess the end.
SPOILER ALERT: Being a sci-fi fan myself I didn't think it would be the priest, but everyone had already told her in the present it was, although I get it - she may have changed the course of time and therefore the man! I told you I was into sci-fi. The other part I didn't get, was when she returned to the present and all of sudden her Mum was there, but didn't seem to mention that she had met her before she was born in the 70's, although maybe the Mum always knew what happened, as proven at the end. I was glad she ended up with Michael and how he changed his life path after meeting her.
These types of books do make me think "what if we can change the past" but I'm a strong believer that everything happens for a reason. If anything the book has a great line at the end in the author's notes: "All those years of waiting when you could have been doing" - makes me want to get my behind into gear and do something!
THE SCORES:
Donna: 6
Emma: 6
Gemma: 6
Kim: 8
Pamela: 5
Sandra: 6
Average 6
Let us know what you thought about this book. We would love to read your reviews and hear what you would score it.
If you enjoyed this book why not try:
The Seven Deaths of Evelyn Hardcastle by Stuart Turton
The Bear and the Nightingale by Katherine Arden
Rivers of London by Ben Aaronovitch
The Forgetting Time by Sharon Guskin
The Girl in the Red Coat by Kate Hamer
The Particular Sadness of Lemon Cake by Aimee Bender
Happy reading!