Review: Tempest by Julie Cross

Title: Tempest (Tempest, #1)
Author: Julie Cross
Pages: 352
Publisher: St. Martin's Griffin
Release Date: January 3, 2012

The year is 2009. Nineteen-year-old Jackson Meyer is a normal guy… he’s in college, has a girlfriend… and he can travel back through time. But it’s not like the movies – nothing changes in the present after his jumps, there’s no space-time continuum issues or broken flux capacitors – it’s just harmless fun.

That is… until the day strangers burst in on Jackson and his girlfriend, Holly, and during a struggle with Jackson, Holly is fatally shot. In his panic, Jackson jumps back two years to 2007, but this is not like his previous time jumps. Now he’s stuck in 2007 and can’t get back to the future.

Desperate to somehow return to 2009 to save Holly but unable to return to his rightful year, Jackson settles into 2007 and learns what he can about his abilities.

But it’s not long before the people who shot Holly in 2009 come looking for Jackson in the past, and these “Enemies of Time” will stop at nothing to recruit this powerful young time-traveler. Recruit… or kill him.

Piecing together the clues about his father, the Enemies of Time, and himself, Jackson must decide how far he’s willing to go to save Holly… and possibly the entire world.

My Thoughts: There was something very important Jackson told another character in the book, and I'm basically going to tell you the same thing: You need to forget everything you know about time-traveling from other books and movies because you're just going to get frustrated and confused while reading Tempest.

Time-traveling in Tempest ended up being way more complex than I expected. It was a lot for me to take in. It's similar to how I felt about the movie Inception. I still don't understand everything. When I thought I finally had a grasp on the concept, another question or situation popped up and everything I thought I figured out wasn't quite right. The explanations for time-traveling were a bit blury and confusing at times. But I like a bit of a challenge, and it was interesting trying to keep up and figure things out along the way. After I finished, I was sure I had a good hold on the whole time-traveling deal. However, I had a discussion with someone who had also read Tempest, and let's just say I'm not quite as sure as I was before. I'm positive I missed an important detail while reading or maybe not all the important details were revealed in this book. Either way... It's crazy! It gets me wondering how the author can keep up with all of it!

Before I get to what I liked about Tempest, I have to mention some things that I didn't quite like about the book. Some characters' reactions to things were weird and not normal to me. They were too quick to accept time-traveling. And there was a part where Jackson wanted answers and when he had a chance... He decided to go to his job and see Holly to make sure she didn't hate him...and his father just let him go! This was pretty much a life or death situation and here Jackson was painting and making out with Holly instead. What the heck? That doesn't make sense. I actually didn't care for all the scenes revolving around past Holly and friends. Those were probably my least favorite things about the book.

Here's what liked: Tempest was in Jackson's POV. (I love reading from the male perspective; its a nice change. Plus, he was a good character.) Jackson was in college. (New adult! Yeah! I like reading about characters that are no longer high schoolers but not quite considered adults yet.) The time-traveling was challenging but fascinating. (While it was a lot to take in and many new characters kept popping up that I had to keep track of, which made it harder for me to wrap my head around things and had me constantly asking myself 'What the hell is going on?' for more than half the book...it all resulted in some pretty interesting and enjoyable moments in the book. I remember chapter 30 is when I got really hooked into the story. I was biting my nails and everything!)

Although there were some aspects I didn't care for and I may still be scratching my head over all the explanations and stuff about time-traveling, those things never managed to overshadow what I did like about Tempest. It was an action-packed, complex debut novel, and with the way this book ended (can't believe how it ended!), I'm curious about what will happen in the sequel Vortex. Hopefully there will be more answers and the time-traveling concept will become clearer. Looking forward to it!

Rating: 4 out of 5 stars