Book Review: Loop by Karen Akins

Title: Loop (Loop #1)

Author: Karen Akins

Publisher: St. Martin’s Griffin

Pages: 336

Genre: Science Fiction, Time Travel, Young Adult, Romance, Fantasy

Rating: 4.5/5

Goodreads Blurb:

At a school where Quantum Paradox 101 is a required course and history field trips are literal, sixteen year-old time traveler Bree Bennis excels…at screwing up.

After Bree botches a solo midterm to the 21st century by accidentally taking a boy hostage (a teensy snafu), she stands to lose her scholarship. But when Bree sneaks back to talk the kid into keeping his yap shut, she doesn’t go back far enough. The boy, Finn, now three years older and hot as a solar flare, is convinced he’s in love with Bree, or rather, a future version of her that doesn’t think he’s a complete pain in the arse. To make matters worse, she inadvertently transports him back to the 23rd century with her.

Once home, Bree discovers that a recent rash of accidents at her school are anything but accidental. Someone is attacking time travelers. As Bree and her temporal tagalong uncover seemingly unconnected clues—a broken bracelet, a missing data file, the art heist of the millennium—that lead to the person responsible, she alone has the knowledge to piece the puzzle together. Knowledge only one other person has. Her future self.

But when those closest to her become the next victims, Bree realizes the attacker is willing to do anything to stop her. In the past, present, or future. 

First off, wow. This book was great. To begin with, the pros of the book. 1, it was incredibly interesting. Just after reading the Goodreads Blurb. And even though I know that my love of time travel influenced this feeling, I would still recommend this book to people who don’t like time travel. It was that good.

One thing that I really liked about the book was how Bree brought Finn back with her (or more accurately, brought him forward, if that makes sense) to the 23^rd century. I know it says she does this in the blurb, but I was still surprised. It was so different from what usually happens in other time travel books (the heroine has to stay back in the past, fix the problem, and then leaves). I was flabbergasted by this twist. But even when you put that aside, when Bree brought Finn forward, watching how amazed he was by the future was hilarious and insightful. When looking through just Bree’s point of view all the high tech gadgets you can’t get a clear insight of how cool they are because she’s used to all of it. But toss in Finn’s questions – some hilarious, some serious – and the reader is provided insight from a person who is a just a stranger to the futuristic world as the reader is. This definitely allowed me to truly appreciate the world that Karen Akins created.

This leads me to the second thing I really liked about this book: how great the world-building was. Everything’s changed, as one might expect buy jumping 200 years into the future. Just figuring out about all the cool techy gadgets and how they worked was mind-blowing. Like the grappling hook that Bree and Finn used– it seems like something totally boring, but the science has evolved to a point that once you read the book it seems so amazing. And this is just one of the neat devices that are used/described. Ms. Akins definitely did a fantastic job of building a new, cool world. And this may sound cheesy, but I definitely hope our future gadgets will match the ones described in the book.

Secondly, the plot. The adventures that Bree and Finn go on – heart stopping. The whole book was filled to the brim with action and adventure. How could it not be? The two of them have to figure out who’s the person who has been pulling the strings, and why. This one person who hurt Bree’s mom, who has every bit of information laid out at their feet, the person who is willing to kill to stop Bree from piecing it altogether – this person will stop at nothing. One thing about the plot that I had a problem with was the speed. Though this only happen a few times there were moments in the book where it was too rushed and the information was being thrown at the reader. Not only was this annoying, but it was extremely inconvenient. I had to go back and reread sections of the book to pick up on information that I hadn’t noticed at first.

A third thing I liked about the book were the emotions. Not the romance plot, I’ll discuss that later, but just the emotions that Bree felt as she was trying to figure out what her future self had to do with this entire mystery. And god, the moments when only Future Bree knew what was going on – the frustration that both Bree and I were feeling. Like, wow. Ms. Akins was playing with my emotions. Everything I felt was so sharp and so real. There were barely any moments when I had to guess at what Bree was feeling – her emotions were my emotions. There’s no simpler way to state it.

Now to the downsides of the book. One thing that I didn’t really like was the romance plot. The romance throughout the beginning and middle of the book was good. There were touching scenes and Bree was falling in love with Finn. It was sweet. But towards the end of the book where the romance plot reaches its climax, Ms. Alkins drops the ball and the romance is practically gone. It was incredibly disappointing. The whole book was extraordinary. It was fantastic, all except for the one part of the romance plot that matters the most – when Bree and Finn discuss how they feel. The romance plot was building up throughout the book – it was really good before the ending - and then it fell flat on its face. That was just a terrible, terrible thing to witness in such a good book. The other problem I had with this book also had to do with the ending. Basically as Ms. Akins wraps up the book her writing was being incredibly rushed. Some of what she said didn’t make sense or didn’t seem relevant – it was like a last minute scramble. She hadn’t drawn out the ending and hadn’t put in the details that were critical to explain how Bree and Finn figured out who was the culprit then the ending.

Basic things to keep in mind: this book is phenomenal in the beginning and middle. Once you get to the ending, the book basically dies. I had really high hopes for “Loop” and the conclusion just didn’t meet them. But besides the sad conclusion, the rest of the book was really good. I definitely recommend it to people who love time-travel or young adult. Keep an eye out for the next book in the series “Twist” which releases March 31^st, 2015.