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Time travelers are hard to remember. That is why Charlie does not have any friends, cannot ask out his cute neighbor, and why there are post-it notes all over his house with his name on them because his mom does not always remember it. It is also why his dad and Aunt Sophie are gone a lot. But Charlie is just now figuring out why his life is like this.
Charlie lives in Philadelphia in 2011, but when a metal man full of cogs and gears catches his attention on a field trip, he follows him…right into a time hole to 1725 London where he meets sassy Yvaine, a Scottish girl from a different past who is just like Charlie.
Untimed’s appearance screams middle grade with its cover, description, and inner illustrations but do not get drawn in by these things! It was definitely not middle grade like I originally thought. At first, I figured it was right on the line of middle grade and young adult but it turned out to be more suitable for older high school aged teens than older elementary and middle school aged children.
Untimed had a lot of elements that appealed to me and first attracted me to the book and then kept me interested as I read: fantasy, history, and time travel. I admit that with some of these time travel books, if I try to think too hard about the mechanics I get all discombobulated, but they absolutely fascinate me and Andy Gavin added a twist to his version of time travel that made for a wonderfully complicated story. With girls only able to travel to the future and boys only able to travel to the past, along with periods of time where they cannot travel at all, it made for a lot of sticky situations that really kept the action going.
Gavin’s Untimed was a fun and adventurous time travel novel and I loved the twists he created to make the time travel more complicated and the story more interesting. Yvaine and Charlie were both likable characters and I was rooting for them the whole way, hoping that they would make it out safely and fix everything that had gone wrong. It was an exciting whirlwind and I am happy to say that Gavin left the end open for a potential sequel.
Recommended for readers fifteen and older. This is not MG! It is a must read for fans of YA time travel.
Read the full review
here.
