Waking in Time

January 23, 2017
Abbi Thorp is excited to start college at the University of Wisconsin, but she’s still carrying the pain of her grandmother’s recent death; Abbi has her grandmother’s hatbox with her, which is filled with photos and memories, and the fact that she is attending her adventurous grandmother’s alma mater also brings comfort. However, Abbi is haunted by some of Grandma’s last words (including a request to “find the baby”) and a note in the hatbox that expresses hope that Abbi will find the answers that she never could. When Abbi awakens one morning in the year 1983, she’s stunned but then meets Professor W.C. Smith, who knows who she is and where she comes from. Thrown into a mystery that may affect her future, Abbi finds a fellow time traveler in the handsome Will. Stanton’s (the Jamieson Brothers series) breezy time-jumping romance doesn’t break new ground and the conclusion is overly tidy, but Abbi’s interactions with family members she has never met are charming, and snapshots of college life in different time periods add interest. Ages 14–up. Agent: Jane Dystel, Dystel, Goderich & Bourret.

February 1, 2017

Gr 9 Up-Stanton delivers a delightful time-travel romance in this tale of Abbi and Will, two Midwestern college students hurtling through the 20th century in opposite directions. The novel begins with Abbi's first night of college in Madison, WI, during which she's transported from the present to 1983 in the first of many jumps that will eventually take her all the way to 1930. Along the way, she gets a glimpse of Madison in multiple decades, taking readers on a tour of 20th-century youth culture: fashion, music, manners, dating rituals, and women's rights all play a role in the storytelling. Abbi's observations of the university campus reflect changes in the physical and cultural landscapes. As with all good time-travel stories, recurring characters provide essential clues. Here, they are a professor who has been working on Abbi's case since long before she initiated her travel, and a boy, Will, whom she meets for the first time after he's already loved her for decades. The entire adventure centers on the mystery of Abbi's grandmother's life in Madison as a young woman and her dying request that Abbi "find the baby." Tumbling through time on opposite trajectories, Abbi and Will somehow manage to work together to solve a mystery and discover the truth about Abbi's family history. The romance is believable, the time-travel mechanism is complex, and the ending, while perhaps a little too neatly wrapped up, is still quite satisfying.

Copyright 2017 School Library Journal, LLC Used with permission.

January 15, 2017
She's going back in time; he's going forward; they meet in 1961.Still raw from her grandmother's death, 18-year-old Abbi takes comfort in the fact that she is starting her freshman year at the University of Wisconsin in Madison. It's the perfect place, one where the white narrator can make a fresh start and stay close to the memory of Grandma, who once walked the very same halls. But in her wildest dreams, Abbi never could have imagined just how close the two would be. For reasons she is desperate to understand, Abbi finds herself traveling backward through time, with each new stop providing clues to a mysterious family secret. To add to the intrigue, Abbi discovers she's not the only time traveler. Will, a handsome white farm boy from 1927, is on his own journey forward through time, and Abbi gradually realizes that Will is not only linked to her family's past, but also holds the key to her heart--past, present, and future. Though this may provide a quick fix for fans of time-travel romance, the novel fails to distinguish itself from the rest of the pack. While Abbi is a likable-enough protagonist, the story meanders, and the dialogue often feels stilted. However, the greatest disappointment is that a potentially delicious romance between Abbi and Will fails to gain any traction for the first two-thirds of the novel. Without sparks to sustain it, the story fizzles. (Science fiction. 14-16)

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