booknook — Young Adult book reviews

Erasing Time is sandwiched somewhere between 'awesome' and 'ridiculous.' It's fun to imagine what our world will be like 400 years from now, including new fashion trends, language evolution, and so on. But some of the things in Erasing Time just seemed silly. For example, the people in the future claim that they study the past by reading old accounts, stories, texts, and watching old movies. But they view children's stories like Winnie the Pooh and Little Red Riding Hood as real life accounts, so they say that Sheridan and Taylor must be lying when they say animals didn't used to talk. The people in the future wouldn't know because animals are supposedly extinct. But surely if they have access to old texts, they could read factual books about how animals communicate. And if this society is so incredibly advanced and doing things like curing aging, then surely they can tell the difference between a scientific text and a children's book. Things like that just seemed a little ridiculous to me.

I was kind of disappointed by some of the things that were left out in the book, like a lot of the science and technology. For example, here are a few things Taylor asked:

"Is garbage taken outside the city?" "How is fresh air ventilated inside?" "Where does the city get the raw materials to build things?" "Tell me about the material that covers the city? How does it withstand the rain and snow beating down on it year after year?"
—ARC of Erasing Time, Pages 100-102

But we never actually get to see the answers to any of those questions! The author just says something like, "Jeth answered all her questions but Sheridan tuned out." But I would have loved to have more information. I was really curious about this futuristic world C.J. Hill created and I wanted to know more about it, but felt like I wasn't getting the juicy details I craved.

There was a small romance in Erasing Time, but unfortunately I didn't connect with it at all. Echo and Sheridan start falling for each other but I kind of feel like it came out of nowhere. A day and a half after they meet, they're kissing. But where did that come from? I still don't even understand why they kissed. There had been a little flirting but it was so minimal and so corny, that I never even imagined they'd actually kiss. And then as the story continued, I literally couldn't tell if they were ignoring the kissing incident and just being friends, or if they were officially dating. The romance had no chemistry and very poor development to the point where I couldn't even tell if it was supposed to be a romance or not!

Despite all my issues with this book, it was an interesting and engaging read. It was part frustrating, part ridiculous, but also very interesting. The main thing that this book has going for it is that there are so many twists and turns. For a large part of the book, you have no idea which characters to trust. C.J. Hill was constantly teasing me, leading to believe that Echo was a good guy, then had me thinking he might actually be bad, then thinking he's good again, etc. Then the same thing for some of the side characters.

This book is full of action, conspiracy, and secret organizations.. and of course, time travel. Erasing Time wasn't perfect—there were some inconsistencies and unanswered questions—but it was an interesting story that kept me turning pages. ( )

You know how when a book is good, like really good, you completely stop the rest of your life for it?
Like instead of grocery shopping or looking for a job, you just sit on the swing outside and read. And the weather is wonderful and you could be relaxing in the pool, but you’d rather sit beside the pool and dive into a book like your life depends on it.
Yeah, this is totally that book.
I completely forgot the environment around me and was thrown into Erasing Time. It took some time to get the feel for the book. Third person POV always distracts me! Ugh, I don’t know what my problem with it is, but I don’t enjoy reading it.
However, once the action and adventure started, I was hooked. Line and sinker.
There are constant twists and happenings. Once I would decide that this was that, I was immediately proved wrong.
Surprises. Everywhere.
Shocking surprises that made me grin, laugh, and cry all at the same time!

So yeah, this turned out to be way better than I expected. Great character development, great sci-fi adventures. Dystopian is becoming my new favorite craving. ( )

Review originally posted http://hobbitsies.net/2012/08/erasing-time-by-c-j-hill/

I’m not entirely sure I’ll ever get over dystopian books. I LOVE THEM SO MUCH. And I loved how Erasing Time by C.J. Hill was a dystopian but with TIME TRAVEL and all sorts of sci-fi like elements.

Erasing Time was a surprisingly quick read. It’s by no means a short book, but I flew through Erasing Time. I don’t want to say it was an easy book, but it just really sucked me in and kept my attention, which I loved.

I liked how different Sheridan and Taylor were. Despite being twins, they differed so greatly in personality, and I loved seeing their differences. I kind of want them to be my best friends, honestly.

Okay, and so there’s this TWIST in Erasing Time that I just loved and was totally thrown by. I mean, I expect I should have seen it coming (did anyone else?) but I totally didn’t and I loved that.

Basically, Erasing Time by C.J. Hill was an engaging dystopian with heavy sci-fi bits, like TIME TRAVEL. The characters were awesome, and I loved the TWIST. Be sure to check out Erasing Time if you’re up for a quick, engaging and action-packed dystopian. ( )