Review: Time Between Us by Tamara Ireland Stone

Author: Tamara Ireland Stone

Publisher: Hyperion

Page Count: 368 pages, Hardcover

Date Published: October 9th 2012

Find it on Goodreads: Time Between Us

Source: Purchased (ebook)

Anna and Bennett were never supposed to meet: she lives in 1995 Chicago and he lives in 2012 San Francisco. But Bennett has the unique ability to travel through time and space, which brings him into Anna’s life, and with him a new world of adventure and possibility.


As their relationship deepens, the two face the reality that time may knock Bennett back to where he belongs, even as a devastating crisis throws everything they believe into question. Against a ticking clock, Anna and Bennett are forced to ask themselves how far they can push the bounds of fate, what consequences they can bear in order to stay together, and whether their love can stand the test of time.

Fresh, exciting, and deeply romantic, Time Between Us is a stunning, spellbinding debut from an extraordinary new voice in YA fiction.

I went into this book thinking I was going to absolutely adore it. Even though I enjoyed it, I was sadly disappointed as well.

Anything to do with time travel is my weakness. I have always said I was born in the wrong era, but I don't know which era I belong in, so to be able to travel to different ones? YES PLEASE. When I read the synopsis for Time Between Us I was SO EXCITED. It sounded like a cute contemporary with a neat time travel twist and I read it as soon as I got it! It wasn't horrible, but I did have quite a few issues with this book.

Anna was the biggest problem for me. I both liked her and disliked her and I couldn't make up my mind. She was totally relatable in the sense that she wanted to get out of her small town and travel the world. Trust me, I know the feeling. Thankfully, I've had the wonderful opportunity to travel and see different countries like China, Ireland, England, but poor Anna had never left the USA. I wanted to cry for her. BUT at the same time, she drove me up the wall!!!

Anna was could be so selfish! I mean, I know everyone can be selfish at times and it's just part of being a human, but I couldn't stand her complaining about this and her disappointment in where Bennett takes her and the fact that she didn't realise that when meddling with time, there are bigger things at stake than her friends. Okay, with that one, I get it. She was worried her best friend was going to be irreparably injured, and I know if I had the chance to go back and help her, I would absolutely WANT TO, but if someone explained to me that it could mess up EVERYTHING, I would think it through a bit more. I mean, let's be reasonable. There were a lot of other times when she thoroughly frustrated me, but they're all kind of blending together at this point.

But then there was Bennett. I liked him. He wasn't my favourite love interest of all time, but I didn't not like him. He was kind of cool, liked good music (travelling back in time to go to concerts? Uh, yeah!) and was totally sweet. His power was really cool, what with him being able to travel anywhere in the world, but only back in time and only to the date he was born. I thought that was really neat, as usually time travel books are about time travelers who can travel anywhere, anytime. But this concept was a bit different and I appreciated that.

Ok, let's talk about something that really bugged me, shall we? Emma, Anna's best friend. Emma was a minor character in the story, but did play a part and we hardly got any background on her at all. Supposedly she's British. But where in Britain? I mean, I'm assuming England, due to some of her slang and typically that's where people mix up English and British, right? I could be totally wrong, as I'm Canadian, but it still annoyed me. Who knows, maybe she was Welsh! I know that's such a tiny thing to be annoyed about, but it stuck out to me and I couldn't not mention it.

Overall this is a solid three stars for me. I had issues with the MC, so that's always a bummer and there were tiny things in the book that irritated me a lot. It was also pretty predictable from the beginning what the big plot twist was going to be... But the story was cute and the romance was as well, so if you're up for a kind of cheesy romance book with a time travel twist, Time Between Us might just be a good contender!

Happy reading!
~Kristy