canadianbookaddict's review
2.0
I had such high hopes for this book. I had read the description and it sounded so interesting and I was excited to read it because I like book that has time traveling but I had not read many books with aliens.
Anyway, this book was ok. Not something I will read again and I actually lost interest in this book but I forced myself to read it just because it is a book I had to read and review. If it weren't a book to review I most likely would have quit it.
I do have the second book to read and review and I am hoping it will better than this one.
Anyway, this book was ok. Not something I will read again and I actually lost interest in this book but I forced myself to read it just because it is a book I had to read and review. If it weren't a book to review I most likely would have quit it.
I do have the second book to read and review and I am hoping it will better than this one.
gregoreads's review
4.0
It's so nice reading books by Canadian authors that I actually really enjoy! And then I saw that Megan Crewe actually went to my university, which is even better.
I was a bit wary of this one at first but it ended up having a really cool plot that kept building up. Some parts were a bit far fetched but I feel like that's relatively acceptable in a lot of sci-fi. And maybe "wrongness" and "thereness" were used a bit too much, and honestly the names Skylar and Noam are more alien than Win. But other than that, I'm really looking forward to continuing on with this trilogy! I loved the rules set out for the time travel and the concept of the fading that comes with each shift, it really lent that extra step of believability to the world.
I was a bit wary of this one at first but it ended up having a really cool plot that kept building up. Some parts were a bit far fetched but I feel like that's relatively acceptable in a lot of sci-fi. And maybe "wrongness" and "thereness" were used a bit too much, and honestly the names Skylar and Noam are more alien than Win. But other than that, I'm really looking forward to continuing on with this trilogy! I loved the rules set out for the time travel and the concept of the fading that comes with each shift, it really lent that extra step of believability to the world.
stacylmoll's review
5.0
I wish it had not taken me this long to find this book, as a fan of science fiction, this book is a refreshing read. I love the idea that there were no humans here on Earth at all, and that we were brought here from another galaxy. However, I think the best part of this book is how one small thing can change the outcome of many things. Everyone has at least one thing they wish they could go back and change and most of the time we never think about what that might mean to our future. Skyler is faced with knowing the truth about her brother's disappearance and what it would mean to change that, showing us that it isn't as easy as we might like to think it would be.
forsakenfates's review
3.0
3.5 Stars
“There's a perfect dependability to math. No matter how many times you perform the same operations, the answer's always the same. As the factors expand out in their unshakeable pattern, my heartbeat steadies, the chill ebbs, and the wrong feeling fades away."
I loved the premise of this book. You have the planet Kemya, where it citizens have basically turned Earth into an experiment. Travelers and Enforcers from Kemya alter the course of history, and they have been doing it for thousands of years. I loved that you had aliens involved in human history and basically controlling its course, but then you have the added ability of time travel.
The main character in this book, Skylar, is has anxiety and is obsessed with the number 3. She is consumed with this idea of wrongness and things not being right in the world. A lot of her mannerisms were annoying and at times she failed to realize the true significance of her actions in the past and how much one little change could effect the entire future. While Skylar was helpful to Win in terms of finding the weapon, she was not a very strong character. I wish she could have been written as a stronger female character. This is not to say she was weak, but there were many times where her characterization irked me.
As for the other main character, we have Win. Win is an alien rebel searching for a weapon to destroy the experiment on Earth. I did not have any major issues with him as a character. I also appreciated that the romance was not obnoxious in this book. There is definitely a connection between Skylar and Win, but this book focused more on their mission and their friendship rather than romantic feelings for each other. I'm sure their relationship will be explored in subsequent books though.
The main reason I’m rating this book the way I am is the writing. The writing was simple, easy to follow and enjoyable. But it fell flat for me, there was nothing spectacular about it and there was nothing that kept me on the edge of my seat waiting to see what would happen. While I did appreciate the simplicity of the writing in certain aspects of the book, there were other times when the writing did not fit my vision of the story. For the premise of this book, there was a large lack of true action. Yes, Skylar and Win were on the run from Enforcers and travel both across the world and time, but I did not have a big sense of adventure or action during their travels and “battles.”
Overall, this was an interesting start to the trilogy. I really like this premise, especially with the time travel. I’m also invested in this book enough that I do want to pick up the sequel and see what happens next in this world. However, I was not blow away by this book.
*I received a copy of this book from the publisher via NetGalley in exchange for an honest review*
“There's a perfect dependability to math. No matter how many times you perform the same operations, the answer's always the same. As the factors expand out in their unshakeable pattern, my heartbeat steadies, the chill ebbs, and the wrong feeling fades away."
I loved the premise of this book. You have the planet Kemya, where it citizens have basically turned Earth into an experiment. Travelers and Enforcers from Kemya alter the course of history, and they have been doing it for thousands of years. I loved that you had aliens involved in human history and basically controlling its course, but then you have the added ability of time travel.
The main character in this book, Skylar, is has anxiety and is obsessed with the number 3. She is consumed with this idea of wrongness and things not being right in the world. A lot of her mannerisms were annoying and at times she failed to realize the true significance of her actions in the past and how much one little change could effect the entire future. While Skylar was helpful to Win in terms of finding the weapon, she was not a very strong character. I wish she could have been written as a stronger female character. This is not to say she was weak, but there were many times where her characterization irked me.
As for the other main character, we have Win. Win is an alien rebel searching for a weapon to destroy the experiment on Earth. I did not have any major issues with him as a character. I also appreciated that the romance was not obnoxious in this book. There is definitely a connection between Skylar and Win, but this book focused more on their mission and their friendship rather than romantic feelings for each other. I'm sure their relationship will be explored in subsequent books though.
The main reason I’m rating this book the way I am is the writing. The writing was simple, easy to follow and enjoyable. But it fell flat for me, there was nothing spectacular about it and there was nothing that kept me on the edge of my seat waiting to see what would happen. While I did appreciate the simplicity of the writing in certain aspects of the book, there were other times when the writing did not fit my vision of the story. For the premise of this book, there was a large lack of true action. Yes, Skylar and Win were on the run from Enforcers and travel both across the world and time, but I did not have a big sense of adventure or action during their travels and “battles.”
Overall, this was an interesting start to the trilogy. I really like this premise, especially with the time travel. I’m also invested in this book enough that I do want to pick up the sequel and see what happens next in this world. However, I was not blow away by this book.
*I received a copy of this book from the publisher via NetGalley in exchange for an honest review*
blushling's review against another edition
3.0
Ever since she was a kid, Skylar gets feelings or sensations of wrongness from the most normal things. When she freaks out about a bomb that no one saw and disappeared as quickly as it appeared, she feels like she has completely lost her grip on reality. And then she meets Win, a mysterious boy who somehow knows about the bomb that came and somehow understands her 'panic attacks' completely. After being chased by a group of otherworldly-looking humans carrying weapons Sky had never seen before, Win admits that he is a time-travelling alien rebel hell-bent on stopping scientists from his planet who are experimenting on earth.
Win tells Sky that the sensations of wrongness that she gets are the effects of shifts in the time rift caused by time travellers and takes her back in time to different countries in search of missing pieces left behind by their rebel group's MIA leader- pieces to a device that will stop the aliens from messing with earth's timelines.
Earth & Sky primarily caught my attention because of its Doctor Who vibes. Time traveller picks up a female companion to help him save earth? Sounds like a fun read, right? Unfortunately, the book wasn't as exciting as I expected. Yes, the plot was pretty interesting but I think that the whole concept of a species from another world manipulating Earth just wasn't explained clearly enough. It just didn't sell for me because of that and I found myself stumbling over sentences and getting confused a lot. The world-building was just too weak to hold a massive plot like that.
Sky was a pretty boring protagonist and Win didn't really stand out much for me. I didn't feel a connection with them at all. They went through this cycle of travelling to a timeline, getting chased, finding the piece they need, getting chased again, and returning to Sky's timeline to rest. It got pretty repetitive after a while because there weren't any wow moments that heightened my excitement. I did really enjoy the first part of the book because it started so high, but it just didn't go anywhere after that. Earth & Sky had the makings of a great read, but I think that it just tried to accomplish too much that it fell short in the end.
Win tells Sky that the sensations of wrongness that she gets are the effects of shifts in the time rift caused by time travellers and takes her back in time to different countries in search of missing pieces left behind by their rebel group's MIA leader- pieces to a device that will stop the aliens from messing with earth's timelines.
Earth & Sky primarily caught my attention because of its Doctor Who vibes. Time traveller picks up a female companion to help him save earth? Sounds like a fun read, right? Unfortunately, the book wasn't as exciting as I expected. Yes, the plot was pretty interesting but I think that the whole concept of a species from another world manipulating Earth just wasn't explained clearly enough. It just didn't sell for me because of that and I found myself stumbling over sentences and getting confused a lot. The world-building was just too weak to hold a massive plot like that.
Sky was a pretty boring protagonist and Win didn't really stand out much for me. I didn't feel a connection with them at all. They went through this cycle of travelling to a timeline, getting chased, finding the piece they need, getting chased again, and returning to Sky's timeline to rest. It got pretty repetitive after a while because there weren't any wow moments that heightened my excitement. I did really enjoy the first part of the book because it started so high, but it just didn't go anywhere after that. Earth & Sky had the makings of a great read, but I think that it just tried to accomplish too much that it fell short in the end.
raven168's review against another edition
2.0
This book had some good points and some not so good ones. There were times where I would get kind of excited about reading what's going to happen, but then there were other times where I was simply kind of bored. The story itself has a pretty fascinating premise, but I think where it fell short for me was with the main character. For about half the book maybe, Skylar was okay more or less. But then at a specific point she just seemed to become selfish and a little annoying. I don't know...there was just something about her character that had me feeling ambivalent about her. Sure, she went way above and beyond what she had to do as simply a teenage girl, but there were so many little things about her that bugged me. I did like Win though. I just wish we had gotten to see more of the rebel leader.
This whole book was more less one big world wide scavenger hunt across different times, deciphering clues to follow and find new ones. Since the disappearance of her brother, Skylar has suffered from periods of wrongness where she feels like something is, obviously, wrong and sometimes that feeling overwhelms her. It's right after one of the most intense ones that she comes in contact with Win. For all intents and purposes, an alien. But one that feels more real to her that anything else around her. And the reason behind that makes sense in the book and is pretty interesting. She's hard pressed to believe him when he tells her about the experiment his people's scientists have been doing to Earth for thousands of years and how there is the rebel group he's a part of trying to put an end to it. But when he takes her back in time to a place of her choice, it's become harder not to believe him. And she agrees to help him. With her "ability" to feel wrongness and her eye for detail, she helps Win to discover three of the four pieces his rebel leader had hidden. Their whole trip takes about two days, and along each step they're being dogged by enforcers. Not the most pleasant of people to be sure, considering they're more the shoot first ask questions later type. But Win and Skylar are mostly successful and have obtained all the that they are able which leads up to a meeting with some fellow rebels. Then Skylar is taken home where as time goes on she still doesn't feel like she's done. So when Win shows up to ask is she still wants to help, she doesn't hesitate to say yes.
The different places that the two of them were built up well, and the whole story itself was easy to picture all of what was going on. I'm no history buff though, so I don't know if any of it was accurate or even if any was supposed to be based on real battles. Even so, Skylar did pretty well handling the different time periods and locations.
If I hadn't already received an ARC for the second book, I probably would not have continued this series. But since I have, here's hoping it's better than this one.
Copy provided by publisher via Netgalley.
Spoiler
I can understand her wanting to go back and find out what happened to her brother Noam the night he disappeared. But what made me frustrated with her is how she didn't think thru her actions and actually wanted to go back and save him. Yes, okay, you'd probably be hard pressed to find a person who wouldn't want to save someone they loved if they could. But my problem lies with her not caring about any of the repercussions that such an action could have. And when she wouldn't let it go, it only led to anything she could have done not being an option at all.This whole book was more less one big world wide scavenger hunt across different times, deciphering clues to follow and find new ones. Since the disappearance of her brother, Skylar has suffered from periods of wrongness where she feels like something is, obviously, wrong and sometimes that feeling overwhelms her. It's right after one of the most intense ones that she comes in contact with Win. For all intents and purposes, an alien. But one that feels more real to her that anything else around her. And the reason behind that makes sense in the book and is pretty interesting. She's hard pressed to believe him when he tells her about the experiment his people's scientists have been doing to Earth for thousands of years and how there is the rebel group he's a part of trying to put an end to it. But when he takes her back in time to a place of her choice, it's become harder not to believe him. And she agrees to help him. With her "ability" to feel wrongness and her eye for detail, she helps Win to discover three of the four pieces his rebel leader had hidden. Their whole trip takes about two days, and along each step they're being dogged by enforcers. Not the most pleasant of people to be sure, considering they're more the shoot first ask questions later type. But Win and Skylar are mostly successful and have obtained all the that they are able which leads up to a meeting with some fellow rebels. Then Skylar is taken home where as time goes on she still doesn't feel like she's done. So when Win shows up to ask is she still wants to help, she doesn't hesitate to say yes.
The different places that the two of them were built up well, and the whole story itself was easy to picture all of what was going on. I'm no history buff though, so I don't know if any of it was accurate or even if any was supposed to be based on real battles. Even so, Skylar did pretty well handling the different time periods and locations.
If I hadn't already received an ARC for the second book, I probably would not have continued this series. But since I have, here's hoping it's better than this one.
Copy provided by publisher via Netgalley.
gabs_myfullbookshelf's review
3.0
I received a free copy of this book via Netgalley in exchange for an honest review.
Earth and Sky is about aliens. This is also one of the few paranormal creature books that I usually like. I don't know what sets them apart from, say, werewolves or mermaids, but for some reason books centered around aliens tend to do better with me--perhaps its that they are less likely to be formulaic. Earth & Sky was not a letdown; not knowing exactly what to expect, I found myself pleasantly surprised at this book.
The plot was entertaining and didn't resemble anything I've ever read before. It was very different; think of a scavenger hunt of sorts, except that the scavenger hunt takes place in different continents spanning centuries. Yeah, it was pretty fun. And there were some pretty interesting ideas thrown in about how time travel could alter life in unexpected ways. I especially liked that the predicament with Skylar's brother was added to the book; it gave a more personal, believable approach to how time travel would affect things. I hope that this plotline still is touched on in the next books, because it was probably my favorite part of the whole story.
Time travel is a big factor in this book, and the author didn't give a wishy-washy "we aliens have a gift" reason for why it was able to happen. The explanation sounded scientific. (which is surprisingly hard to come by in YA, I've found) The details didn't feel forced; the rules of time travel were reasonable.
However, while I enjoyed this book, I had issues with it as well as likes. First off, I didn't like Skylar and Finn, or their relationship, very much. I felt like there wasn't much substance to them; not a lot of character growth, and not all that much personality. Skylar was the typical female protagonist; she wasn't all that fun to read about, because she was not interesting. Win was only slightly more interesting because he was an alien, but other than that, he was the stereotypical paranormal guy to Skylar's typical girl.
I didn't feel like there was much chemistry between Skylar and Finn, probably because they were a bit dull. Not that much chemistry made for boring "romantic moments". I felt like they were just together for the sake of having romance in the series, which I really hate.
Also, near the beginning the plot is a bit slow and at times I found that it was bogged down with unnecessary details. Like Skylar seeing that her friend's favorite coffee shop has a help wanted sign in the window. This really doesn't add anything to the plot; once I got to the end, I saw what the author's intent may have been, but I still don't think that having some random fact about a coffee shop thrown in was the best way to do it.
Earth & Sky is an entertaining read, and it manages not to fall into most of the paranormal tropes. It wasn't at the level of amazing, but it was fun.
Earth and Sky is about aliens. This is also one of the few paranormal creature books that I usually like. I don't know what sets them apart from, say, werewolves or mermaids, but for some reason books centered around aliens tend to do better with me--perhaps its that they are less likely to be formulaic. Earth & Sky was not a letdown; not knowing exactly what to expect, I found myself pleasantly surprised at this book.
The plot was entertaining and didn't resemble anything I've ever read before. It was very different; think of a scavenger hunt of sorts, except that the scavenger hunt takes place in different continents spanning centuries. Yeah, it was pretty fun. And there were some pretty interesting ideas thrown in about how time travel could alter life in unexpected ways. I especially liked that the predicament with Skylar's brother was added to the book; it gave a more personal, believable approach to how time travel would affect things. I hope that this plotline still is touched on in the next books, because it was probably my favorite part of the whole story.
Time travel is a big factor in this book, and the author didn't give a wishy-washy "we aliens have a gift" reason for why it was able to happen. The explanation sounded scientific. (which is surprisingly hard to come by in YA, I've found) The details didn't feel forced; the rules of time travel were reasonable.
However, while I enjoyed this book, I had issues with it as well as likes. First off, I didn't like Skylar and Finn, or their relationship, very much. I felt like there wasn't much substance to them; not a lot of character growth, and not all that much personality. Skylar was the typical female protagonist; she wasn't all that fun to read about, because she was not interesting. Win was only slightly more interesting because he was an alien, but other than that, he was the stereotypical paranormal guy to Skylar's typical girl.
I didn't feel like there was much chemistry between Skylar and Finn, probably because they were a bit dull. Not that much chemistry made for boring "romantic moments". I felt like they were just together for the sake of having romance in the series, which I really hate.
Also, near the beginning the plot is a bit slow and at times I found that it was bogged down with unnecessary details. Like Skylar seeing that her friend's favorite coffee shop has a help wanted sign in the window. This really doesn't add anything to the plot; once I got to the end, I saw what the author's intent may have been, but I still don't think that having some random fact about a coffee shop thrown in was the best way to do it.
Earth & Sky is an entertaining read, and it manages not to fall into most of the paranormal tropes. It wasn't at the level of amazing, but it was fun.
ac5206's review against another edition
4.0
I enjoy this book.
It was something different to the dystopian type books I have been reading. This book was incredibly easy to read, maybe a little too easy..as though it were written for an elementary students reading level.
I did find this book hard to get into at first, but after the first few chapters I was interested in reading more. The main character Skylar is slightly annoying, but this is also book one so hopefully that changes going forward. The other character Win -- he seems like a mystery so I hope to learn more about him in book two.
In all this was a good read, and I will continue on with the series. I did receive a free digital copy of this book from NetGally in exchange for an honest, unbiased review.
It was something different to the dystopian type books I have been reading. This book was incredibly easy to read, maybe a little too easy..as though it were written for an elementary students reading level.
I did find this book hard to get into at first, but after the first few chapters I was interested in reading more. The main character Skylar is slightly annoying, but this is also book one so hopefully that changes going forward. The other character Win -- he seems like a mystery so I hope to learn more about him in book two.
In all this was a good read, and I will continue on with the series. I did receive a free digital copy of this book from NetGally in exchange for an honest, unbiased review.
izzy_happyfornow's review
4.0
This book was better than expected. The ending was a twist I saw coming, but enjoyed a lot. I found this book to be a mixture of doctor who and the 100(though I haven't read it). in a really great way.
It took a while for this book to really hit a spot with me, but when it did I really enjoyed it.
I don't recommend the audio book. The narrator isn't terrible, but the wording was too childish and stood out with the audio for me.
It took a while for this book to really hit a spot with me, but when it did I really enjoyed it.
I don't recommend the audio book. The narrator isn't terrible, but the wording was too childish and stood out with the audio for me.