All Our Yesterdays - Cristin Terrill

Pages: 362

Publisher: Bloomsbury

Release Date: 1^st August 2013

Edition: UK proof, review copy

A mind-bendingly brilliant debut – the must-read novel of the year.

Yesterday Marina was safe, privileged, wealthy. She was falling for James – the super-brainy youngest son of a very powerful family. Yesterday ended badly.

Today Em is in a cell she may never get out of alive. There’s a flicker of hope when she talks to the boy in the cell next to hers – and when she remembers who she used to be... Yesterday.

Tomorrow Em has a mission. She must escape and travel back in time. she must kill the boy Marina loved – to save her future.

All Our Yesterdays has been one of the most hyped debuts this year so I went into it expecting to fall in love, but I was actually a little disappointed.

I so wanted to be blown away and fall head over heels in love but it just didn’t happen. Don’t get me wrong, when I got into it I flew through it, but I just felt very little inclination to actually pick it up and read it. It wasn’t because I disliked the characters, they were really interesting, and it wasn’t slow or boring in any sense. We just didn’t click.

The time-travel aspect may have had something to do with it. Although I love a bit of time travel, I was left confused and a little mind-boggled when it was brought up and the jumping around in time wasn’t always clear and I often became puzzled as to wish versions of the characters I was reading about. And yet the science behind the possibility of time travel made sense and I found it really interesting – it sounds like a possibility! I really liked the fact that Terrill explained it plainly and cleanly.

The differences between the characters in the past and the present was also sharp and defined, but there was also a distinct connect which I enjoyed. It’s crazy to think how the smallest details can change everything and all of things that set such major changes in motion, for characters and well as events. I especially noticed it with Finn – I couldn’t believe how much the events that him and Em were trying to prevent changed him and made him grow up. It was the same with Em; such brilliant characterisation.

All Our Yesterdays also had a really interesting and unusual bad guy which I loved. There was none of the distance of a prowling psychopath or an evil dictator but a friend whose life steered their brilliant brain off the track in desperation. It’s fascinating dynamic that Cristin Terrill delivered flawlessly.

After an explosive and dramatic ending I’m intrigued to see what Cristin Terrill delivers next.

For my 2013 Debut Author Reading Challenge

Thanks to Bloomsbury for the review copy.

Sophie