Loop

Author: Karen Akins
Series: Loop # 1
Genre: Science Fiction, Romance
Publisher: St. Martin's Griffin
Release Date: 21 October 2014
Summary: At a school where Quantum Paradox 101 is a required course and history field trips are literal, sixteen year-old time traveler Bree Bennis excels…at screwing up.   After Bree botches a solo midterm to the 21st century by accidentally taking a boy hostage (a teensy snafu), she stands to lose her scholarship. But when Bree sneaks back to talk the kid into keeping his yap shut, she doesn’t go back far enough. The boy, Finn, now three years older and hot as a solar flare, is convinced he’s in love with Bree, or rather, a future version of her that doesn’t think he’s a complete pain in the arse. To make matters worse, she inadvertently transports him back to the 23rd century with her.  Once home, Bree discovers that a recent rash of accidents at her school are anything but accidental. Someone is attacking time travelers. As Bree and her temporal tagalong uncover seemingly unconnected clues—a broken bracelet, a missing data file, the art heist of the millennium—that lead to the person responsible, she alone has the knowledge to piece the puzzle together. Knowledge only one other person has. Her future self.  But when those closest to her become the next victims, Bree realizes the attacker is willing to do anything to stop her. In the past, present, or future.
Review: Loop was, interesting.  There were a lot of things I enjoyed about Loop, I liked the world building, I loved how time traveling was explained throughout the book, and I like how Akins plays on it being genetic and not completely scientific, and I really liked the idea, different timelines corresponding.  I just had a hard time with the execution.  I'm a fan of science fiction, and my suspension of disbelief is pretty high, but there were a lot of parts in Loop that left me confused.  I wish that Bree had been two separate characters, and I really wanted to hear more from Finn about how he remembered her from the future/past.  I felt like the romance was rushed, and that Bree was too far away from her future self to really be believable, I didn't like how bad she felt for reacting the way she did to her best friend Mimi, because Mimi is right smack in the middle of "okay" as far as literary best friends go.  It sucks because time travel is one of my favorite branches of science fiction, but this was hard for me to follow. Add to all of this the not-quite-futuristic jargon and my head was spinning, and not in a good way.  There is a good chance that most of the plot holes will be resolved in the next book, I just had an incredibly hard time with hearing about all of these relationships that Bree has with people and not actually seeing them built, although timelines do intersect at some points, overall this story was a hard one for me to work out.  If I'm feeling ambitious I may attempt the second one, but probably not.  I do feel like I should add an addendum: this would really work as a movie because you could see flashback sequences, etc.  but having to make that up just showed poor editing and plotting, unfortunately.
I would check out the Ruby Red series if you're looking for a good time-travel romance, or if your looking for something more science-fiction check out This Shattered World (out December 23rd).