The Time Quake

Gee, this book was kind of a disappointment. ~,~ A little background. This book, the Time Quake, is the last installment in the Gideon Trilogy. I read the first couple books, "The Time Travelers" (previously titled Gideon the Cutpurse) and "The Time Thief", in the middle of 2008, so it was about a year and a half since I was able to complete the series, because this book was published just this year.

I had thought I really liked the series. It was all about time travel, and these two kids get stuck in the 18th century thanks the girl's father's anti-gravity machine. Whatever. In the second book, they accidentally leave the boy behind, so the girl and the boy's dad have to go back for him, but they end up in the wrong time, like 30 years after their episode in the past, so the boy is now all grown up and gotten used to the past. Then I think the bad guy got hold of the time machine and time started getting wacky. Also the girl started getting these weird powers that allow her to "fast-forward" through time, so everything stands frozen while she's still moving. This doesn't stop until she touches the boy again.

Now this book here was, frankly, a disappointment for me. With so much time passed between readings, I'd forgotten a lot of what had happened, and where the book picked up didn't exactly help things much. And when the book was wrapped up... it didn't feel right somehow. It was like the author simply decided to quickly tie things up, when I think if you had to do the thing right, there should have been some more chapters added to explain everything. For example, the bad guy's plot was to go back in time to when George Washington was crossing the Delaware and kill him, so that America would never get it's independence. Kind of stupid if you ask me, because he had actually gotten to like New York. He just wanted to keep America under British Rule. Also the girl kind of dies, because of how fast she fast-forwards or something, and there's nothing anyone can do about it. Luckily she took the bad guy with her, so that got rid of him.

The weirdest thing was that in the end, the boy was able to go back to the time he and the girl were about to go to the anti-gravity machine, and stop all the time events from happening. I was thinking, "How the heck did he get there?!" I mean, the time machine they had was broken, and besides, the future was ruined already, because the bad guy had actually succeeded in killing George Washington! Everything must have turned out different, so how did their families still exist? What, did they have time to fix up the Washington mess? Nothing was said about it. It's just a happily ever after ending, but it didn't feel justified.

It's a very sad day on Bettina's Book Club when I have to review a book I didn't like very much. ~,~ If you happened to like the Gideon Trilogy, I suggest you not read this book and pretend that Peter and Kate get back to their own time and world in a believable and satisfying manner. If you've never heard of this series, then I suggest you not bother picking it up. The last one is very disappointing.