Review: The Man in the Empty Suit

Author: Sean Ferrell

Title: The Man in the Empty Suit 

Description: The narrator—we never learn his name—invented time travel, and to celebrate, he throws a party on the 100^th anniversary of his birth, to which he travels every time he has aged 365 days. The year he gets to wear The Suit, he’s excited about visiting the party, but something happens that has never happened before—one of his selves turns up dead, and it’s a self that’s not too far in the future from him. If he wants to continue to live, he has to use the clues he’s left himself to figure out how to prevent the killing. A beautiful woman shows up at the party as well, and who she is and why she came—and how to save her life—become other puzzles that the narrator must solve before time runs out.

Review source: Netgalley

Plot: The first half of the book had me totally gripped. This kind of self-referential time travel is fascinating. I thought the book slowed a little once the narrator left the party.

Characters: The narrator is the main character—the ONLY character for much of the book, though he shows up in many incarnations, which he names (the Youngsters, including the Inventor, and the Elders, including Seventy, Yellow, and the Screwdriver. Not to mention the Body.) In many ways he is completely self-absorbed and self-focused—which makes sense, since he is the only person he interacts with—but when he leaves the party, he suddenly becomes selfless, which strikes me as a little artificial.

Writing style: The author keeps things moving briskly for the first half of the book, but then the action slows way down. I have to admit that by the end I was mighty confused. I could probably have worked things out with an elaborate diagram of who was tethered to whom, as I’m sure Ferrell did, but I didn’t want to go to the bother.

Audience: Science fiction, time travel, or mystery fans.

Wrap-up: You’ll probably want to turn to page 1 and read it again, just to figure everything out. 3.5/5*

Book Review: Cottage by the Sea

Author: Ciji Ware 

Title: Cottage by the Sea

Description: As the book opens, Blythe Barton Stowe is finalizing her divorce from her film director husband, who indicated his dissatisfaction with their marriage by getting her sister pregnant. She escapes the paparazzi by fleeing to Cornwall, where her family claims they originated. Stunned by the betrayal, she engrosses herself in planning a business with her new landlord, Lucas Teague. Meanwhile, she finds that Lucas has an ancestor who shares her name, and before she knows it, she is travelling back in time to share the experiences of the first Blythe Barton. Blythe’s time travelling experiences, her romance with Lucas, and her eventual confrontation with her ex-husband and her sister make up the plot of the novel.

Review source: this was a free book for kindle.

Plot: The most interesting part of the book for me was the business that Lucas and Blythe started. I’ll bet that wasn’t supposed to be the most interesting part. The time travel was interesting, since the reader really wasn’t sure what would happen—the modern-day Blythe only viewed events as if they were a movie; she didn’t participate in them.

Characters: The historical love triangle featured three really nasty characters who were difficult to care about, while Blythe and Lucas weren’t nasty, but they also weren’t really interesting.  Lucas’ relationship with his 10 year old son Richard provided some relief from boredom, as did the nasty Chloe, rival for Lucas’ affections.

Writing style: the author seemed to have an agenda promoting some weird DNA inheritance theory (i.e. Blythe’s troubles were partly caused by her ancestress’ flaws); too much print was wasted on this. Just call it bad karma and move along. Also, Blythe is from Wyoming, and the frequent “Wyomingisms” that she spouts are a bit much.

Audience: I had this book in the “fiction” folder on my kindle, but it was more of a romance.

Wrap-up: If you are a total sucker for time-travel romance, or romance of women who are betrayed by their own sisters, this book is for you. Otherwise, probably not. 2/5*

I'm claiming this book for three reading challenges: the new author challenge (1/15), the unread books challenge, and the Why Buy the Cow challenge.

The Revisionists by Thomas Mullen

Author: Thomas Mullen

Title: The Revisionists

Description : The books opens as we meet Z, a “revisionist” who has been sent from the “Perfect Future” to make sure that the future stays that way. His opponents are the “hags,” time-traveling rebels who attempt to change the future by preventing certain events from happening. After Z makes sure that a certain journalist will indeed be murdered, the point of view shifts to three other protagonists: Sari, a beautiful young Indonesian domestic worker who is trapped in her horrific employment by her lack of documentation and her inability to speak or understand English; Leo, a former CIA agent who, a bit at loose ends after his CIA gig went bad, works for some kind of intelligence-gathering company; and Tasha, a lawyer on the fringes of activism who is of interest to both Leo and Z.

Review source: Netgalley

Plot: The plot is riveting. Even though the action alternates among the four main characters, the reader is not confused about what’s going on. Mullen manages to describe the action clearly without revealing motives too soon. During a good amount of the book, the reader wonders how all four of these characters will eventually connect, but there is no doubt that will eventually happen.

Characters: The four main characters form two loose couples: Z and Tasha know one another, and Leo and Sari know one another. As the point of view moves from one to another, each character reveals enough of his or her past to become familiar and sympathetic to the reader. Z is the only character who is written in first-person, and there is no doubt that he is the primary protagonist. He also has the most backstory, though all of the characters have some history.

Writing style: This was my first book by Mullen, and I thought it was brilliant. He kept the plot spinning, drew the characters finely, and still managed to ask the big philosophical questions that make a book memorable.

Audience: While its genre is technically time-travel  sci fi, this book will be of interest to readers of literary fiction as well.

Wrap-up: What is the nature of history? If people lose their past, how much of themselves do they lose with it? Is murder ever justified? Do we live in the best of all possible worlds? These questions are the kind that keep getting raised by this book; all the while we’re trying to fight off fiendish bosses, mourning lost loved ones, and trying to figure out the moral conundrums of postmodern life with the characters of The Revisionists. 4/5*