Time Between Us (Time Between Us #1) – Tamara Ireland Stone

Title: Time Between Us (Time Between Us #1) by Tamara Ireland Stone
Publishing Info: October 9, 2012 by Disney Hyperion
Genres: Contemporary, Science Fiction, Time Travel, Young Adult
Find it on the web: Buy from Amazon // GoodreadsDate Completed: November 22, 2012
Related Posts: Time After Time (Time Between Us #2)

Anna and Bennett were never supposed to meet: she lives in 1995 Chicago and he lives in 2012 San Francisco. But Bennett''s unique ability to travel through time and space brings him into Anna''s life, and with him, a new world of adventure and possibility. Fresh, exciting, and deeply romantic, Time Between Us is a stunning and spellbinding debut from an extraordinary new talent in YA fiction.

Right off the bat, I was immediately intrigued. I loved the set-up in the beginning where we see a younger Bennett approached by an older woman and immediately I was like, “That’s totally Anna” and bam! History (or the future, I guess) it changing forever!

Tamara Ireland Stone did a fantastic job of mixing sci-fi with a contemporary love story, both of which kept me hooked throughout the book. There are little twists and quirks with Bennett’s time travel abilities that slowly get revealed to Anna (and henceforth, the audience) that kept me on the edge of my seat. I loved how time and place were woven into the story so seamlessly. I feel like that’s something that’s always tricky with time travel novels because everything has to line up just right and you really need to know where the characters will be at all times and what will happen before and after it happens. I think Stone did a great job with keeping the story neat and tidy without making it too cookie cutter.

The relationship that develops between our two main characters kept me hooked throughout the book as well. Once we find out that Bennett is from the future (well, Anna’s future — the audience’s present day) and they start to get to know each other, then we’re plagued with the conundrum of what happens to the both of them — Does Bennett stay in the past with Anna? Can she go to the future with him? Will he hop back and forth to be with her? What’s the best possible way — if any — that these two characters will end up together? It was definitely a story line that kept me sucked in until the very end!

One last thing that made the book so great for me was all of the settings of the books that I totally identified with. Firstly, I pictured Anna’s school just like my high school — they had a part of the hallway called “The Donut” which reminded me of “The Tower” at my high school and the floor to ceiling windows in the lunch room was exactly how mine was too. The fact that it took place in Evanston, IL also made me feel right at home in this book. I don’t actually live in Evanston, but I do live in the suburbs of Chicago so a lot of it is really familiar to me. Then throw in the added fact that Bennett and Anna travel to Devil’s Lake State Park in Wisconsin and I pretty much lost it — in a good way. Devil’s Lake is my mom’s all time favorite place in the world and we used to camp there all the time as kids, so it’s a big part of my life. I loved seeing it in a book and I definitely didn’t expect it to pop up! All those elements combined really made me feel like I was a part of the story (and seriously made me question if Stone knew all these things about me…….) so it was a lot of fun!

Anna: I really liked Anna. She seemed down-to-earth and a character that is ideally flawed. She makes some bad decisions — especially when it comes to Bennett’s abilities and how they affect the world around them — but it’s so easy so say that if I were in her place, wouldn’t I do the same thing?
Bennett: Bennett was a great male lead in the story and I really enjoyed that he was not a narrator — I liked that Anna had to figure out his story little by little and we got a little bit more mystery to add to the sci-fi aspect instead of knowing everything all at once and then it’s just the rest of the plot that unravels. Like anyone with abilities, he’s got his rules that he won’t break, and it was great to see how those boundaries get pushed when Anna comes into the picture.

BUY IT!

Wow, I really loved the science fiction/time travel aspect combined with the contemporary romance and I LOVED these two characters together!

BOOKS LIKE TIME BETWEEN US

(click on the cover to see my review!)