what I’m reading: the psychology of time travel by kate mascarenhas.

In 1967, four female scientists built the world’s first time machine. But just when they were to unveil their achievement, one of the scientists suffers a breakdown, putting the project at risk. To protect themselves, the other members exile the woman from the team and erase her accomplishments. 50 years later, time travel is a big deal. Ruby knows that her Granny Bee was the exiled scientist but Granny Bee refuses to discuss her prior scientific life or what happened to her. When Granny Bee receives a note from the future detailing the death of an unknown woman, Ruby fears the unknown woman is her grandmother and embarks on a mission to try to stop the future from happening.

This book presents a different version of time travel, one where time travelers freely travel to different time periods and can meet up with other versions of themself. Travelers from the future live and have lives in the past. Travelers from the past have lives in the future. The book really delves into the title, the psychology of time travel, and the effect time travel can have on each individual person.

That being said, I felt just ambivalent about this book and I didn’t find the plot to be especially captivating. I wasn’t really interested in the mystery of who the unknown woman was and how she died. There’s a lot of characters in the book and they don’t all interact with each other and there are a lot of side stories about different time travelers so it was difficult for me to really connect with any of the characters.

The book jumps around a lot to different time periods and different characters so I found myself constantly having to stop and think about what character I was reading about and what the time period was so I could remember where they were in the story. Because the book takes place in so many different time periods, a lot of times you would read about two characters and then five chapters later you would find out they were mother and daughter. Or you would read a scene and then chapters later you would read the same scene from someone else’s point of view. I found myself flipping back and forth and rereading in the book a lot.

This book was a bit of a let down, considering all the great reviews it has. But if you like time travel I would give it a chance purely for the different take on time travel.

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