leslielikesthings's review against another edition
4.0
The pacing was a little off on this one, it didn't quite all come together for me, but I appreciated the big ideas, admired what it was trying to do and was largely very entertained..
neonpomegranate's review against another edition
5.0
Annalee is always extremely prescient, both in their fiction and non-fiction. In this case, horrifyingly, they correctly portray that the Comstock Act is never dead and can always be brought back to life to try to kill us (at the time of this writing, it’s being used by the far right to try to end legal access to medication abortion in the US).
Annalee has huge, world- and time- spanning ideas and that’s fun to experience as a reader. I love their work and I find their desire to be a hard sci fi writer - where the science is always real in the work - really funny in the best way, since they had to abandon it for this premise.
Don’t skip the notes at the back. They’ve changed how I hear one meme-song forever. Experiencing learning history this way is so pleasurable.
Annalee has huge, world- and time- spanning ideas and that’s fun to experience as a reader. I love their work and I find their desire to be a hard sci fi writer - where the science is always real in the work - really funny in the best way, since they had to abandon it for this premise.
Don’t skip the notes at the back. They’ve changed how I hear one meme-song forever. Experiencing learning history this way is so pleasurable.
jaina8851's review
adventurous
mysterious
tense
fast-paced
- Plot- or character-driven? A mix
- Strong character development? No
- Loveable characters? It's complicated
- Diverse cast of characters? Yes
- Flaws of characters a main focus? It's complicated
2.75
I really wanted to love this book. I thought the premise was interesting in the beginning, but it ended up feeling really heavy handed. It also felt like a lot of aspects of the time travel were "too much" and "not enough" at the same time. The author glosses over how exactly the characters are expediently traveling around the world in the 1890s, and also how one of the main characters is zipping back and forth to different timelines and why. What is the actual urgency to get back to the 1990s multiple times when you *have a time machine*? Also the major development that I did like reading the end notes about all the different things the author researched to include in the book. But yeah, overall feeling is disappointment.
Spoiler
Tess's life was better off when her best friend died by suicide than when she survived made me want to throw the book across the room. Suicide survivors are obviously allowed to have a complicated spectrum of emotions, but having it play out as factual in this book that the thing killing Tess is that she was better off when Beth had died is pretty gross.katie19's review against another edition
challenging
dark
emotional
mysterious
reflective
sad
tense
slow-paced
- Plot- or character-driven? A mix
- Strong character development? It's complicated
- Loveable characters? It's complicated
- Diverse cast of characters? Yes
- Flaws of characters a main focus? Yes
4.0
allisongm's review against another edition
adventurous
challenging
dark
emotional
hopeful
reflective
sad
tense
medium-paced
- Plot- or character-driven? A mix
- Strong character development? Yes
- Loveable characters? Yes
- Diverse cast of characters? Yes
- Flaws of characters a main focus? Yes
4.5
mschlat's review against another edition
3.0
Why I picked this up: I saw this in my local library in the new book area and thought "Yes, I do need another time travel novel". Plus, it has a pull quote saying it's "[t]he mind-blowing punk feminist sci-fi time-traveling thriller you've been waiting for".
What I thought: There's just a ton of stuff in this book. Newitz builds a world where time travel exists as a matter of course due to five Machines that exist scattered around earth. If you understand the geology (the Machines are large stone structures that need to be rhythmically tapped to work) and meet certain conditions, you can travel to any time in your past. And people do, and make "edits" regularly. In fact, much of the background of the book is the struggle to build a history empowering to women by carrying out many, many small edits.
Add to this the tales of Beth in 1992 (a high schooler with too much experience of violence) and Tess in 2022 (a time traveller who is connected to Beth) and you have a lot. I was fascinated with the story of how Tess tried to change to Beth's path and the struggles both experienced as a result. The book, especially at the beginning, is much darker than I expected and has a lot to say about the choice to use violence to save women from further violence.
But in addition to all that, there's are plots about the World's Fair in Chicago in the 1890's and the fight to defeat the influence of Anthony Comstock and the rise of female entrepreneurs and the existence of goddess-worshipping time travellers in Jordan, and it was all too much. So of that overwhelming may be due to my slow read, but I was much more interested in Beth and Tess's personal struggles than the larger story Newitz was telling.
What I thought: There's just a ton of stuff in this book. Newitz builds a world where time travel exists as a matter of course due to five Machines that exist scattered around earth. If you understand the geology (the Machines are large stone structures that need to be rhythmically tapped to work) and meet certain conditions, you can travel to any time in your past. And people do, and make "edits" regularly. In fact, much of the background of the book is the struggle to build a history empowering to women by carrying out many, many small edits.
Add to this the tales of Beth in 1992 (a high schooler with too much experience of violence) and Tess in 2022 (a time traveller who is connected to Beth) and you have a lot. I was fascinated with the story of how Tess tried to change to Beth's path and the struggles both experienced as a result. The book, especially at the beginning, is much darker than I expected and has a lot to say about the choice to use violence to save women from further violence.
But in addition to all that, there's are plots about the World's Fair in Chicago in the 1890's and the fight to defeat the influence of Anthony Comstock and the rise of female entrepreneurs and the existence of goddess-worshipping time travellers in Jordan, and it was all too much. So of that overwhelming may be due to my slow read, but I was much more interested in Beth and Tess's personal struggles than the larger story Newitz was telling.
whatulysses's review against another edition
4.0
Really loved this take on time travel as a means of changing history. Rich and well-researched historically. A few pieces feel missing from the world -- I wanted more payoff for the notion that abortion is illegal in this alternate "present," more of a sense of what this means for the lives of women besides our narrator "Beth." The horrible future we're trying to avoid feels too sketchy and the time-traveling MRA characters who want to bring it about are a bit like caricatures (then again, maybe that's true to life...).
Super thought-provoking and hugely fun read overall! And the end made me cry. Yay.
Super thought-provoking and hugely fun read overall! And the end made me cry. Yay.
ava96's review against another edition
3.0
The time traveling aspect was interesting and I liked the explanations at the end about what was actually based on reality.