Thoughts on Thursdays: All Our Yesterdays

Title: All Our Yesterdays

Author: Cristin Terrill

Book #: 1st of Series


Publisher: Disney Hyperion

Publish Date: September 3rd 2013

Pages: 368

Format: Hardcover


Date Read: October 31st 2013

Rating: ★★★★★  / out of 5

   

I swear to myself in that moment that I'll never say that name again. James is gone. There's only the doctor now.

Summary: 

"You have to kill him." Imprisoned in the heart of a secret military base, Em has nothing except the voice of the boy in the cell next door and the list of instructions she finds taped inside the drain.

Only Em can complete the final instruction. She’s tried everything to prevent the creation of a time machine that will tear the world apart. Each failed attempt in the past has led her to the same terrible present—imprisoned and tortured by a sadistic man called the doctor while war rages outside. 

Marina has loved her best friend James since the day he moved next door when they were children. But on one disastrous night, James’s life crumbles apart, and with it, Marina’s hopes for their future. Now someone is trying to kill him. Marina will protect James, no matter what. Even if it means opening her eyes to a truth so terrible that she may not survive it. At least not as the girl she once was. 
(Synopsis taken from Goodreads)

Thoughts:

I'm not going to lie- I really wasn't enjoying this book at first. I think the first 100 pages or so were really a chore to get through. However, once I hit that spot- and I'm sure we can all relate to this- my whole opinion was changed.

What bothered me the most about the beginning was that I really just had no idea what was going on. Obviously, this should be expected to some degree when starting a book, and I do hate when I start a book and I already can figure out everything that is going on. But, there are different levels of this. Level one is pretty much "Figured-it-out." Level two, the good one to be on, is "Mysterious-and-interested." And, lastly, level three is "Confused-as-fuck." I really do not like to be on that third level.

If you felt or think you might feel the same away about this book, I have to tell you to give this book a chance and keep trying because there is a possibility that for you, like myself, it will get better.

__________

The Characters

Marina: she is your typical whiny, self-centered YA female character, main or side. She is in love with her best friend who just so happens to be the super gorgeous, rich and smart boy-next-door.

I really was not too thrilled about her character at the beginning. Or at all, really. However, right around the time when my feelings started to change towards this book, we see Marina's character change. 

I can't imagine what he thinks of me, how selfish and spoiled I must look to him. Selfish, spoiled, and in love with a boy who will never love me back. Selfish, spoiled, and completely delusional.

Somewhere along the way, after everything that has happened to her the past few days, Marina begins to develop a more hardened attitude, which makes sense especially once we learn(view spoiler).

In the end, I found that I admired her, not only for who she became and what she had been though, but also who she was and what she had lost.

"Please," he says. "Please don't leave me alone."
Stupid girl. I bite the inside of my lip to keep it from wobbling.
"I'm sorry," I say, and walk away.

Em: While there is no doubt that she is one hard to kill bad-ass with a resolve of steel, she was not without her faults. I think what this book taught me, though, is that it's okay to have characters with faults. What I have been looking for in YA for so long is to find those perfect female protagonists who are strong and capable, but what I am forgetting is how unrealistic that is.

We don't quite know everything about Em in the beginning. Her character is definitely what added to my confusion, but that is because of who she is and where she is from. We don't really learn all of the details until later on and, if this bothered you like it did me at the start, just hold on! Things will be explained.

I really admired her toughness, though, as well as her tender side. When we figure out who she really is, (view spoiler) some of the things that she says starts to make more sense, and they also hit a soft spot. What would you say or think about yourself if you were in her position?

She's catty and shallow, but only because she hasn't leanred how to like herself yet. How can she not see how beautiful she is, how special?

The ways in which she also goes through more character growth, just added to her humanity. Yes, it was annoying as hell when she had so many opportunities to complete her mission and then chickened out, but who's to say that I wouldn't end up acting the same way in her position? I think the best thing is that she didn't give up and that she kept trying for the next chance. 

The other important characters here are Finn and James, the love interests, and The Doctor, the villain.

James is the genius-boy-next-door who I never really connected with or understood during the book because of the magnitude of what he's been through, but I could visualize his struggle. He is battling a lot of rights and wrongs and, by the end of the book, I admired the sacrifice he made.

Finn is one of the best love interests I have read about in a while. He starts off as just a friend of a friend, but after everything the characters have been through, you see where the attention shifts to him. 

How long have I loved Finn? It crept up on me so gradually, I don't know if I can even pin the moment down.

He's humble, caring, and fiercely protective of the people he cares about.

The "bad-guy", The Doctor, is hard to assess as an actual villain because he is just completely delusional. The real baddy, I guess, would be the director who is controlling the doctor, but he plays a really small role besides that.

You will learn many things about the doctor, but the main thing is that he actually believes, with a fever, that he is doing the right thing.

He looks down at me, and he actually looks sad. "Please. They'll hurt you."
I stare back at him. "And you'll let them."
He turns away. "Sometimes you have to hurt someone you love for the greater good."
"Why do you get to decide what the greater good is?" I sawy. "These are people you're talking about, not just numbers in one of your equations. Don't you get that? Did you ever?"

The Story

Like I said, it was really confusing at first. However, after 100 pages or so in, things start to make sense. You begin to be able to draw those lines that connect the different characters and plots. 

I rather liked the way the author did it, looking back. If she didn't, it would have given away too much. She really wants to distinguish between the characters and the story lines, before you start to see where they blend. 

Overall, I haven't read too many time travel and parallel universe books that I loved, but this is definitely one of them.

Quotes:

The stars are shocking. It's been so long since I've seen them, and I swear they've multiplied in my absence. Out here, away from the city, they're like tiny explosions of light. Thousands of diamonds lodged in the atmosphere.

His eyes drop to his lap. "I miss you, Marina."
I hate these nights. I think I hate them more than anything else.
"I'm right here," I say. "You're the one who's gone."

Discussion Questions:

1. What did you think of the beginning of the book? Were you confused, too?

2. Apparently, there's a sequel. What did you think of the ending of this book, and do you think it needs to be continued?


On My Goodreads:

https://www.goodreads.com/review/show/620207695

Relativity by Cristin Bishara

Title: Relativity

Author: Cristin Bishara

Book #: Standalone


Publisher: Walker Childrens

Publish Date: September 10th 2013

Pages: n/a

Format: Kindle Edition


Date Read: September 21st 2013

Rating: ★★½  / out of 5

Maybe applying the scientific method will help. First, define the question. That's easy.

Where the hell am I?

Summary: 

If Ruby Wright could have her way, her dad would never have met and married her stepmother Willow, her best friend George would be more than a friend, and her mom would still be alive. Ruby knows wishes can't come true; some things just can't be undone. Then she discovers a tree in the middle of an Ohio cornfield with a wormhole to nine alternative realities. 

Her ideal world—one with everything and everyone she wants most—could be within reach. But is there such a thing as a perfect world? What is Ruby willing to give up to find out?
(Synopsis taken from Goodreads)

Review: I received a free copy of this book for review.

I feel really luke-warm about this book. There is nothing really obvious about it that would make me not like it, but digging deeper into it I came to the conclusion that this book was just not doing it for me. There were some really good things about it, as well as some negatives, and in the end they all just cancelled each other out so I was left with a very overwhelming neutral feeling.

__________

As far as parallel universes are concerned- which is basically what this book is all about- I think the author did a very good job. She included many scientific theories and equations that could provide explanation for the hows and whys and even ifsof parallel universes actually existing and being traverse-able. 

[A] We once thought of an atom as the smallest unit, the most basic unit of matter. But look closer and you find that atoms are made of electrons, neutrons, and protons. Keep looking closer. Protons and neutrons are made of quarks. Quarks are made of vibrating loops of string. As strings vibrate, they warp the surrounding fabric of space, producing black holes, tunnels, and other oddities, like U-shaped universes with shortcuts from one stem to another.

[B] Observation causes the collapse of wave functions. Wave functions map the possible states of a system. So, if wave functions branch in different directions, independent of each other, then there are countless alternate realities playing out.

She also quoted research from famous scientists like Albert Einstein and made it have a very well researched, realistic feel. It did not feel like a fantasy novel to me. Definitely very science-fiction. Unfortunately, while this took up a large part of the book, it was all that I really liked. 

Ruby, the MC, was pretty bland in my opinion. I didn't really feel like she had a like-able personality. Though, she did have a pretty sarcastic attitude that I enjoyed:

She puts her hands on her hips and sizes me up. "You should've kept the bag for yourself. You need, like, a total makeover," she says with a look of sheer repulsion. "That shade of denim? It is so bad. And those shoes."
I look down at my frayed jeans and olive sneakers. "Thanks for the tip." I sidestep around her and head downstairs.
Yep, we'll be friends in no time.

Besides her sarcasm, I just felt like she was too impulsive, selfish, winy and kind of a pushover. It bothered me so much that, despite how smart Ruby claims to be, she wasn't able to wrap her mind around the fact that every little rash decision she made altered something in the lives of the people who lived in that world.

I help myself to the cash. Really, she would want me to have it.

A black Trek isn't locked onto the track, so now it's mine.

She also has this habit of saying "Just calm down, Ruby. Take a deep breath. N2 and O2 in, carbon dioxide out," and pretty much says this every time she starts to freak out. I just wasn't able to connect to her, or any of the side characters, at all.

Overall, I would still recommend this book. If you want to read about a book that explores parallel universes with science to back it up, this would be a decent contestant. 

Quotes:

Mr. Burton seems to have this habit of rubbing the top of his bald head It's like he keeps checking for hair.

I don't believe in magic, but I do believe in jaw-droppers conjured up by Mother Nature. The Northern Lights, for one. Brachiosaurus standing forty feet tall, volcanoes spewing two-thousand degree lava  the Milky Way containing 100 billion planets. All of it seems otherworldly, the stuff of pure imagination. 

Kandy gives me a venomous look, which I return in kind. Then we proceed to ignore each other. A symbiotic relationship. 

It's impossible.
But apparently, sometimes things aren't always what they appear.

I start walking again, trying to wrap my brain around all this, when I see the library. Seriously, catch me before I swoon and face plant.

The universe is expanding 74.2 kilometers per second per megaparsec. Just because we can't feel it doesn't mean it's not happening.


On My Goodreads:

http://www.goodreads.com/review/show/712269850

Tandem by Anna Jarzab

Title: Tandem

Author: Anna Jarzab

Book #: 1st of Trilogy


Publisher: Delacorte Books for Young Readers

Publish Date: October 8th 2013

Pages: 448

Format: Kindle Edition


Date Read: August 31st 2013

Rating: ★★★½ / out of 5

"The universe, he said, strives for harmony and balance. All that is born will someday die. Ashes to ashes. Things fall apart."

Summary:

Sixteen-year-old Sasha Lawson has only ever known one small, ordinary life. When she was young, she loved her grandfather's stories of parallel worlds inhabited by girls who looked like her but led totally different lives. Sasha never believed such worlds were real--until now, when she finds herself thrust into one against her will.

To prevent imminent war, Sasha must slip into the life of an alternate version of herself, a princess who has vanished on the eve of her arranged marriage. If Sasha succeeds in fooling everyone, she will be returned home; if she fails, she'll be trapped in another girl's life forever. As time runs out, Sasha finds herself torn between two worlds, two lives, and two young men vying for her love--one who knows her secret, and one who thinks she's someone she's not.
(Synopsis taken from Goodreads)

Review: I received a free copy of this book for review.

I'm not going to sugar coat this or anything: I hated this book for the first 75%. 

What I really loved, right from the start, is the science behind it all. While this concept of multiple universes is not original, it is my favorite. In the book A Crack in the Line by Michael Lawrence, every time a decision is made (down to what color shirt you decide to wear that day) the universes split and you get a world for each of your possible choices. Left or right? Yes or no? This is basically the idea that Tandem works with, and I loved it. I also loved how the extra ideas the author added to this concept. Your alternate self, or your double in another universe, is called your "analog". The author also created a great explanation of the system, which we see an example of on Loc 3069 of 5272 (Sorry guys, I don't have the page number! I was reading this on my kindle. I will find it when I buy the book).

Unfortunately, for most of the book, the story was too romantically dramatic, angst filled insta-love, with a way-too-gullible M.C. who makes poor decisions and cries a lot. The one love-interest, who Sasha has the more romantic feelings for, was too hot/cold in the beginning. He pulled the answer-questions-with-questions and you-can't-handle-the-truth things a lot and I honestly just wanted to smack him for the majority of this book. And, while with Juliana (Sasha's analog) it's really hard to point the finger at who's wrong in that situation, I couldn't help but not like her for running away from her problems (albeit we learn a lot more about her problems later on). The rest of the characters made little to no impression on me. 

Bottom line: I just wasn't really feeling it with this one because of the characters and the story which, though I liked the science part, wasn't giving me any feelings of excitement and thrill.

But wait, there's more!

I'm not sure exactly where and when it happened, but it did. Sometime while read the last part of this book, I fell in love. I saw huge improvement in the characters (though Sasha still cries a lot, hell, I cry a lot too sometimes. Can't help it if we're overly emotional people, can we?) and the story took a couple of turns that, while I could have seen coming if I think about it now, I hadn't really paid attention to being possible in the beginning. We see where Thomas begins to draw the lines between duty and his morals. We also see more complexities behind the analogs, which I began to find fascinating in Sasha and Juliana's case.

My favorite development was what Sasha goes through. In the beginning of all this, she really hates her situation and just wants to go home to her normal life. In a way, she is very much like Juliana, who just wants to be free of her problems and have that normal life. However, as the story starts coming to a close, we see where Sasha and Juliana's motives shift and diverge. The winy, "woe is me" Sasha from the beginning of the story slowly disappears and we meet a more determined, selfless version of her former self. When Sasha gets her first, real opportunity to go home, she says this:

"I won't go! I cried, digging my nails into the fabric of this jacket. "Not until Juliana's back. There are other lives at stake here, not just ours"

Juliana does wish that she could stop running away and be this better person, it is obvious that she can't. Unlike Sasha, who is beginning to mold into this situation and become determined to fix the problem, Juliana plainly admits that she just can't:

"I'm sorry," she repeated. She sounded like her heart was shattering. "I can't. I wish I was better, but I'm not."

Based on this evidence, I have a prediction that: (view spoiler)

Overall, while this was a tough journey for the most part, the end of this really left me hungry for more. Chapter 38!?!? Crazy stuff. I would recommend this book, but with caution. I really didn't like the characters for the most part, but their growth in the end made it almost worth it.

Quotes:

"What did she do?"
"She wept," Gloria said, her own eyes wet at the memory. "Like a child, she wept. And my heart broke for her, as it breaks for you now. You're both so young, and you have so much resting on your shoulders. The fate of an entire nation- two nations, in fact. It just seems so grossly unfair."

"I know this is hard for you," The queen continued. "But you have to believe that it's for the best. The past is the past, but the future is still worth preserving."

"Sometimes our names are chosen for us, and sometimes we choose our own."

It wasn't just that she didn't want to die. She wanted to live. And she could not call what she'd been doing for the pas sixteen- almost seventeen- years living. Her mother hadn't wanted her to be a flesh and blood mortal, but she was one, and she couldn't imagine another sixty years being a pawn in someone else's game.

"But you can't really protect people from anything, cal you?"

"If there's anything I learned from my mother, it's that power makes you just as vulnerable as it makes you strong. People want to use you for it, or take it from you, all the time."

"I didn't want to see that I was wrong, that I was capable of being wrong."
"We're all capable of being wrong," I whispered.

"There's more than one way to stop a war," he told me.

This was it. The vilest thing I've ever done was happening right before my eyes. But did it really matter? It was inevitable anyway.
Or was it?
"Stop!" I cried.

Thomas shook out his hand; his knuckles had taken quite a beating tonight. "Screw the General," he said.

I mad a face at him, and he returned it. God, I was glad he was alive.

For the moment, though, none of that mattered. He bent his head and kissed me deeply. I kissed him back. We kissed each other, sinking deeper and deeper into an unfathomable ocean straining toward infinity.

This was the part of love I hated, the pain of losing the person you wanted to keep more than anything in the whole world. All the worlds.

I didn't think I'd ever be all right. Not in a million years, not in an infinite number of lifetimes. But I had to go on. I couldn't give up. Thomas had risked his life to return me to mine, and I wasn't going to waste it.


On My Goodreads:

http://www.goodreads.com/review/show/704602064