Book Review: All Our Yesterdays

Media Type: Ebook (ARC)
Title: All Our Yesterdays
   * Series: Cassandra Chronicles #1
Author: Cristin Terrill
Publisher: Disney Hyperion
Pages: Hardcover; 368
Release Date: September 3, 2013
Source: Publisher
—————————————————
Content Screening: Violence

HDB Rating: 5 Keys to My Heart

Recommended to: Absolutely everyone! Especially those who love time travel.

Add it on: Goodreads / Shelfari / Amazon / B&N

“You have to kill him.” Imprisoned in the heart of a secret military base, Em has nothing except the voice of the boy in the cell next door and the list of instructions she finds taped inside the drain.

Only Em can complete the final instruction. She’s tried everything to prevent the creation of a time machine that will tear the world apart. She holds the proof: a list she has never seen before, written in her own hand. Each failed attempt in the past has led her to the same terrible present—imprisoned and tortured by a sadistic man called the doctor while war rages outside.

Marina has loved her best friend James since the day he moved next door when they were children. A gorgeous, introverted science prodigy from one of America’s most famous families, James finally seems to be seeing Marina in a new way, too. But on one disastrous night, James’s life crumbles apart, and with it, Marina’s hopes for their future. Now someone is trying to kill him. Marina will protect James, no matter what. Even if it means opening her eyes to a truth so terrible that she may not survive it. At least not as the girl she once was.

All Our Yesterdays is a wrenching, brilliantly plotted story of fierce love, unthinkable sacrifice, and the infinite implications of our every choice.

Well, I’m floored. If it was up to my current range of emotions, I’d just be babbling to you incoherently about how amazing All Our Yesterdays really is and how much you absolutely need to read this stunning debut. Luckily I still have a minor amount of brain power left to attempt a review. It’s become a rarity for a book to really blow me away, but this one made it look easy. Yes friends, it’s that good.

I don’t care whether you classify this book as dystopian or science fiction, because in all honesty it’s a bit of both. What you can classify it as is an expertly written story. Terrill takes a concept that is difficult to wrap our minds around, and manages to make it entirely plausible. Imagine a world where time travel is real. Where anything that was done was able to be undone. Where one decision ripples across the entire rest of time. What would we do with such a power? That’s the question that haunts the reader as they traverse this story, and it creates a lightning fast plot.

Add to this vivid, three dimensional characters, and I was in love. Told from the alternating view points of Em and Marina, All Our Yesterdays becomes almost hypnotic in nature after a time. Events unfold from the viewpoint of each of these characters, before merging them into something that I wasn’t expecting at all. The amount of raw emotion here, the perfectly flawed characters, the bold romance, it all pulls you in. I was under a spell as I watched the characters barrel towards the inevitable climax. You might manage to figure out what’s coming, but you’ll be powerless to stop flipping the pages.

I had no idea this was a series, and truthfully I have no idea where it’s going. I say this because the ending is so perfect, so bittersweet, that I can’t see where the next logical starting point is. Still, you can bet I’ll be there to read whatever comes next. Cristin Terrill has written a gem of a book in All Our Yesterdays. One that will tear your heart out, make you question your choices, and create a hole that can only be filled with more story. Trust me, this book is absolutely worth your time! I wish I could travel back and experience it for the first time all over again.

FTC Disclosure: I received a copy of this book in exchange for a fair and honest review. I was not monetarily compensated for my opinion.