Book Review: Erasing Time

In this high-action and romantic futuristic adventure, there is no escape from the future for two contemporary girls pulled out of their own time.

When twins Sheridan and Taylor wake up 400 years in the future, they find a changed world: domed cities, no animals, and a language that’s so different, it barely sounds like English. And the worst news: They can’t go back home.

The twenty-fifth-century government transported the girls to their city hoping to find a famous scientist to help perfect a devastating new weapon. The moblike Dakine fights against the government, and somehow Taylor and Sheridan find themselves in the middle. The only way to elude them all is to trust Echo, a guy with secrets of his own. The trio must put their faith in the unknown to make a harrowing escape into the wilds beyond the city.

Full of adrenaline-injected chases and heartbreaking confessions, Erasing Time explores the strength of the bonds between twins, the risks and rewards of trust, and the hard road to finding the courage to fight for what you believe in. Quoted from Goodreads

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Ah, I love Janette Rallison . . . I mean C.J. Hill.    I love finding an author that I completely trust, knowing I will like whatever they write, no matter what genra.  It doesn't always happen. Often I'll find a book I love, only to have it be a one hit wonder.  I'm not saying that the author still isn't writing, but that no book comes close to the first one.  I won't give names, but luckily C.J. Hill isn't one of those authors.

Erasing Time was excellent.  Think dystopia, time travel, sci/fi, mistaken identity, and romance all rolled up into one.  How could I not absolutely enjoy this book.

Let's start with the language.  Yes, language, and not the %*@# kind.  Sheridan and Taylor are sucked 400 years into the future, and, shock!, the language has changed.  They speak a kind of garbled/evolved english/spanish hybrid, which, incidentally, is why they meet Echo, a young historian/linguist who specialized in their time period and translates for them.  I really liked this aspect.  Maybe there are tons of books out there that deal with this issue, but most time travel books I've read kind of gloss over it, or they only go back a few decades or centuries, so they are still easily understood, or there is a mystical reason that whoever time travels can speak whatever language they encounter.  

Okay, rant over.  

Basically Erasing Time is one of the most realistic dystopia books I've ever read.  I liked the worldbuilding in this book, and language and symbols are central to that worldbuilding. Not only did the language evolve, but so many phrases that we say today, like "jump the shark" or "out of the frying pan, into the fire" didn't make sense, so Taylor and Sheridan could have entire conversations that no one else understood even if they did understand English.  I thought it was fun.

Then there are the characters.  I loved Sheriddan and her regular girl thrust into crazy circumstances take on what happened.  Taylor, her twin, while being a great contrast, is too smart to be easily relatable if we were seeing the story through her point of view.  Then there's Echo.  I loved how ambiguous his character was, even from his point of view.  He is able to keep secrets from the reader, even though we get to see into his head. Also he has a tragic past and an unstable present. Score.

Now we get to the conflict.  Controling/Orwellian type government?  Check.  Sinister crime family/mob?  Check.  Crazy, one armed killers circling the city?  Check.  I love when there's realistic peril from multiple sources.  Sheridan and Taylor are literally thrown into a world they don't understand, and the more they learn about it, the less they are sure they can trust anyone.  

I'm awarding this book a solid 4 stars and recomending it to just about everyone.  Now go, read, and enjoy. Oh, and there is an excellent plot twist. Let me know if you see it coming, because while I probably should have, I totally didn't.

Quotes I enjoyed:

She saw a stark white room and a dozen peole who looked like clowns who had gone bad.

Well, there you had it.  In the future, people assulted their hair with color but kept their floors pristine.  All those years of civilization were not wasted.

 "You said you wanted to study literature in school.  I should have known that wasn't true.  You expect me to believe colleges gave out degrees for reading novels?"