All Our Yesterdays

September 30, 2013
Terrill debuts with a thrilling blend of time-travel adventure and teenage drama, first in a planned duology. When Em and Finn make a daring escape from prison, they use a time machine to journey four years into the past in order to assassinate the man who made temporal jumps possible and turned their world into a totalitarian dystopia. In the past, 17-year-old Marina is focused on her crush on her best friend James until his older brother, a politician, is shot. Soon Marina, James, and their friend Finn are on the run to discover who's behind the attack, while Em and the older Finn stalk their true target: James. Timelines collide, with both the present and the future in jeopardy. Terrill plays with time-travel paradoxes and the idea of destiny as her characters meet, interact, and reconvene at different stages in their lives and in surprising ways, leading to an unexpected climax. Occasional plot wrinkles and confusion surrounding the mechanics of time travel are minor blemishes in an otherwise tense and gripping narrative. Ages 12âup. Agent: Diana Fox, Fox Literary.

Time travel done right. Narrator Em and her boyfriend, Finn, escape from their totalitarian future, time traveling back four years to commit a heart-wrenching assassination of a loved one in order to prevent time travel from being invented and the future from turning so wrong. The future's hinted-at horrors are threatening but expertly backgrounded, avoiding dystopia-fatigue. The clever, accessible time-space treatment isn't weighed down by jargon. Em and Finn's proactive mission means the characters are the hunters instead of the frequently seen on-the-run teen protagonists. The other side of the storyline, taking place in the past that Em and Finn travel to and starring their past selves, is narrated by Marina (Em, in this timeline) and involves her brilliant yet interpersonally challenged best friend (and crush) James and his friend Finn, who annoys Marina, as they deal with a tragedy in James's family. The believable, complex relationships among the three characters of each respective time and in the blended area of shared time add a surprise: A plot ostensibly about assassination is rooted firmly in different shades of love. Perhaps richest is the affection Em feels for Marina--a standout compared to the truckloads of books about girls who only learn to appreciate themselves through their love interests' eyes. Powerful emotional relationships and tight plotting in this debut mark Terrill as an author to watch. (Science fiction. 12 & up) COPYRIGHT(1) Kirkus Reviews, ALL RIGHTS RESERVED.

March 1, 2014

Gr 7-10-Time-travel paradigms and a dual narrative combine in this fast-paced temporal tale. The two voices are that of the same character: Marina, in the present, and Em, in the future. Future Em and present Marina run parallel courses as Em tries desperately to change present circumstances enough to alter future horror. Marina's longtime crush James, a teen genius who discovers how to manipulate time travel, intends to use that discovery to save his assassinated congressman brother. Em and Finn (her future romantic interest and James's good friend) travel back to the present to change their own and the world's fate, but their multiple efforts result in imprisonment and torture by the mad scientist James becomes. Em/Marina's parallel stories converge in a violent confrontation where characters from the present meet their future selves. Time-travel tropes may not hold up under close scrutiny, but the limited number of major players and the carefully focused plot keeps the action moving. Characterization is fairly stock: James is a brilliant monster, and Finn is consistently levelheaded and appealing. The future Em is much more developed than the present Marina, which makes the inevitable loss of one and the saving of the other disconcertingly unsatisfying. The built-in tension provided by knowledge of the world that will result if they fail makes Finn and Em's efforts compelling, however, and the escalating pace and intertwined narratives keep the pages turning. The philosophical question is intriguing: What price is too high to change fate?-Janice M. Del Negro, GSLIS Dominican University, River Forest, IL

Copyright 2014 School Library Journal, LLC Used with permission.

September 15, 2013
Grades 8-11 It's an age-old philosophical exercise: If you could go back and kill someone before he or she grew up to do terrible things, would you? What if that person was someone you cared for? It's a dilemma Em is used to. She and her companion Finn have escaped from their prison cell 14 times in order to go back in time four years to prevent their best friend James, a 17-year-old genius, from creating a time machine that leads to a world at the edge of ruin. Now they're out of options: this time James must die. Terrill's smart, fast-paced debut intercuts Em and Finn's pursuit with that of, well, the four-years-younger Em and Finn it pursueda literary situation ripe for confusion. But Terrill avoids unnecessary brain melt by keeping things remarkably clear and never at the expense of character or emotion. It is, in fact, rather heartbreaking to watch characters come to terms with their pastor worse, their future selves and the evils they have created. A savvy blend of sf, action, and even politics.(Reprinted with permission of Booklist, copyright 2013, American Library Association.)