Timebound

Gr 7 Up—How would you feel if everyone you knew and loved vanished when time burped? Suppose the grandmother you had never met suddenly appeared and had an urgent message for you? "Kate, you're the only one who can fix things." This is what Kate Pierce-Keller is confronted with in this immersive and complex time-travel story. Gram is a time traveler for a research institute in the future that sends trained staff into the past to study people and history. When Gram's husband decides he is going to alter history to satisfy his megalomaniac way of thinking, it creates nonstop chaos in Kate's life. Shortly after her grandmother appears, a subtle time shift causes both Kate's mother and father to cease to exist. When she meets Trey, a boy who not only sparks her interest but who believes her wild tale, she sets in motion events that would test any teen to the breaking point. What if the person you fell in love with had to forget he/she ever knew you in order to live? While the end is a bit murky and narrator Kate Rudd sometimes has difficulty changing voices, this is still a very good tale and well worth listening to, perhaps twice in order appreciate all the nuances and events. Worth adding to libraries where teen like a challenging story that combines romance and adventure.—John R. Clark, Hartland Public Library, ME