My Thoughts: Tempest by Julie Cross

The year is 2009. Nineteen-year-old Jackson Meyer is a normal guy… he’s in college, has a girlfriend… and he can travel back through time. But it’s not like the movies – nothing changes in the present after his jumps, there’s no space-time continuum issues or broken flux capacitors – it’s just harmless fun.
That is… until the day strangers burst in on Jackson and his girlfriend, Holly, and during a struggle with Jackson, Holly is fatally shot. In his panic, Jackson jumps back two years to 2007, but this is not like his previous time jumps. Now he’s stuck in 2007 and can’t get back to the future.
Desperate to somehow return to 2009 to save Holly but unable to return to his rightful year, Jackson settles into 2007 and learns what he can about his abilities.
But it’s not long before the people who shot Holly in 2009 come looking for Jackson in the past, and these “Enemies of Time” will stop at nothing to recruit this powerful young time-traveler. Recruit… or kill him.
Piecing together the clues about his father, the Enemies of Time, and himself, Jackson must decide how far he’s willing to go to save Holly… and possibly the entire world.




Before it's release, Tempest by Julie Cross received a lot of publicity. A LOT.  It was one of the most anticipated books for the new year. So naturally I was eager to read it, especially with all the positive reviews it was getting. I didn't immediately go out and buy it, I instead borrowed it from the library. Having now read it, I don't think that I will be buying it in the near future.

I was a little disappointed with Tempest. I approached this novel with high expectations, mostly because of all the great reviews I had been reading. But when I finally began reading, I found that I would get confused in regards to what was going on. Julie Cross had a fantastic concept- a nineteen year old boy who can jump time. I'm not sure if you know this, but I love time travel. Especially if it's done right. The Time Traveler's Wife, Collide, are some of my favourite time travelling books. Both were done right. I don't think that Tempest was done right. It was almost bad. It could have been great though, it had a lot of potential and I am hopeful that the future books in the series will be better.

I was confused in terms of the whole time jumping theory- there were two kinds of jumping: half jumping and a full jump. I wasn't completely certain what the difference was. Also, when a person would jump, what they did in that time would not affect the future. That just does not make sense to me! At all. I think there were a lot of really cool aspects in the book, but nothing was ever explained well; the CIA connection, the role of Jackson- the protagonist, His relationship with Holly, it was all very convoluted. This being an introduction to a trilogy, Tempest was lacking as it didn't set the foundation for the story well.

The characters in the book weren't even that great. However, they were where you got to see the best elements of Cross' writing. They were likable and for the most part you could relate to them easily. Jackson was a good protagonist, however I would sometimes get annoyed with him when it came to Holly. I didn't really believe their love story, so when Jackson would get all protective and start to feel guilty about certain things regarding Holly, I would be like "why? You don't even know how you feel about her." I think that the romance between then could have gone a little deeper. I felt like Jackson acted out of guilt a lot of the time, instead of genuine affection. Holly was a very bland character for me. There was nothing to her, and that bothered me. I wanted to like her, but I couldn't. I also didn't hate her. She was so boring and seemingly unimportant. I really liked Adam though, and the role he played in the novel. He was a grounding force for Jackson and it was fun reading about him. I also kind of liked Jackson's dad. I felt like I experienced the most genuine emotion from him. He was confused and conflicted and that really came through for me in this novel.

Over all, Tempest was an okay book. I am hoping that the next couple of books will be better.

~Happy Reading Everyone!