Member Reviews

I had been expecting this book for a long time and I was not disappointed. It was so sweet.
It was a little less mature than I thought it would be but once I got used to it I really enjoyed myself.
here's my review online: https://www.goodreads.com/review/show/2208596524

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When I read the description of this book, I immediately requested it on NetGalley. A cute time travel LGBT YA romance? Sign me up!

Unfortunately, this book didn’t live up to the expectations.

The Time Traveler’s Guide to Modern Romance tells the love story of Elias and Tyler, two teens separated by 200 years in time. Elias lives in Victorian London and has some problems fitting into society and with what his family expects of him. So his grandad gives him a pocket watch that allows him to time travel. He then meets Tyler, an American bisexual boy that lives in present time. Cuteness ensues.

Since the moment I picked up this book, the writing style didn’t speak to me. It was too flat, especially taking into account that the first chapter happens in Victorian London and everything about the writing was similar to the second chapter, that occurs in present time.

The dialogue sounds stilted and awkward at times, and there’s this moment where Tyler has the same conversation with two different characters back to back. There’s barely any intrigue and the more angsty section of the book, which is usually my favorite, didn’t work for me.

There’s this small plot twist, about 70% in, that could be REALLY dramatic, but it's solved way too quickly, and it barely has any repercussions. And that’s an ongoing theme on this book. Every time something that can change the pace and the direction of the story happens it is solved within 10 pages, and everything moves on swiftly. Including the time travel, that should have much more strict rules.

For a book about time travel, this story has no sense of time. Almost from the beginning, Elias and Tyler agree that they will set a time limit of two weeks to see if Elias adjusts to present America. However, time isn’t mentioned again during the book. So you have no idea if the book takes place in 4 days, 2 weeks, a month or a year.

In this book, we follow Tyler and Elias POVs. Even so, every character in this book felt flat and two dimensional. I couldn’t connect to any of them, but they also didn’t get on my nerves, so at least it was meh.

📚 Tyler was a little weird. I wasn’t sold on his relationship with his friends, it seemed that he only hang out with them because he didn’t want to be alone. And, apart from him wanting to be a filmmaker and having two crushes on a couple that is dating, I don’t know anything else about him.

📚 Elias was cute at times, especially when he was amazed by everything that happened around him. But I can’t fathom how he could just disconnect from his family. Yes, he was angry with his parents and he wanted to run. Okay, I get being impulsive. But of course there were going to be repercussions. And, although they were solved, it was so lightly done that I couldn’t feel anything.

I won’t mention anyone else because I honestly don’t care about any other character.

Beware, this is insta love. Finding someone cute when you meet them? Okay. Attraction? I can bear. Feeling safe holding someone’s hand 30 minutes after meeting them? Too much.

Elias and Tyler fall in love way too quickly and actually get codependent at times. Their first kiss can be seen in a slightly problematic light, and it’s that trope of “can you show me how to kiss?” Nope. I’m not here for insta love.

Sadly, I can’t recommend this book. It was not bad, I don’t hate it. But it’s meh. And I don’t want to recommend meh books to anyone.

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DNF

I'm going to have to pass on this one. The premises was very much a gay Kate and Leopold (yes that movie) but where the movie's charm worked, this book lacked. The writing was awkward and I felt no chemistry between the Tyler and Elias; our main characters in The Time Travelers Guide to Modern Romance.

***Thank you to Netgalley and Entangled Publishing for the chance to read this book.***

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3.5 stars

"The Time Traveler's Guide to Modern Romance" is a light, fluffy read that follows Elias Caldwell from the 1800s and Tyler Forrester in the present. After a series of mistakes, Elias's parents are not going to let him attend college- the time he was very much looking forward to- and instead want to send him to a reformatory school. When he goes to his grandfather, his grandfather reveals that he has a special watch which can allow one to travel through space and time (a hand-held Tardis). Elias is skeptical, but gives it a try and ends up in the present.

Tyler is an aspiring filmmaker, and is currently filming when a boy appears in front of him. Having seen the remarkable appearance, he believes Elias is from a different time/place and tries to help him while he is there. Their attraction grows very quickly as they spend time together. Although there are some awkward or difficult moments, they find themselves falling in love. However, as Elias learns more about what happened when he left, he finds himself pulled across time and has some difficult choices to make.

While this was an, at times, funny, and at other times, sweet story, it moved too quickly, and I did not feel the relationship grow between Elias and Tyler. It felt a bit insta-love which is not uncommon in YA fiction, and I could get there for this couple as they do seem well-suited (and the circumstances probably force a quicker romance due to the amount of time they spend together and the different traditions of the eras). It is also a relatively short book overall, so everything happens pretty quickly- I actually would have liked more in the story and to have it drawn out a bit more.

The main thing that lowered my rating was thinking about time travel and how this would go versus the way things play out. I don't want to say too much about the story specifics to avoid spoilers, but this does not seem to follow the general theories about time travel (e.g. not cyclic or linear), and I got caught up in this a bit. I admit, I like to consider time travel and potential consequences in general, so if you don't think about it too much/only surface-level, this probably won't bother you.

Overall, I think it's a fun, quick read (don't think too much about the time travel). I loved the inclusion of gay main characters and the comical moments that occur due to being out of time. Please note that I received an ARC from the publisher through netgalley. All opinions are my own.

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The Time Traveler’s Guide to Modern Romance was probably up there among my most anticipated reads for this year. I mean, what’s not to love about the premise – gay characters, time travel. Unfortunately, it more than disappointed me.

I’ll start with a quick overview of the plot: Elias’ grandfather hands him a watch that lets him travel back in time. Elias uses said watch, thinking only of wanting to get as far away as possible from his family, because he thinks they all hate him. Elias ends up in modern day New York. The end. (Or it might as well be for what little actually happens between this and the big angsty climax, which is then resolved so easily.)

I thought for a moment I would include a section of what I liked about this book, but actually, I’m not sure anything really stood out. I mean. It’s gay? It has a bi character who very much emphasises that he’s bi? That’s honestly about it.

So what made me dislike it? Well, firstly, and kind of least importantly given everything, the writing was completely not my style. It felt so clunky and I just couldn’t read it easily. And then I couldn’t particularly get into the characters (don’t even get me started on their relationship, ha!). So it was an inauspicious start. Top that off with the fact that I genuinely couldn’t tell which of the two characters was supposed to be from the Victorian Era. Three chapters in, I had to go back and read the blurb to check that Elias was supposed to be the time traveller because I hadn’t been able to get that from his first chapter (no, seriously. There was nothing in it that made me think oh this is him. Besides the attempt at putting on some posh speech for the characters or something, but to be honest, I just thought that was another American screw-up with writing an English accent.

So, I just wanna back up a little, briefly, and talk language (and by extension, research/historical worldbuilding). (This is why I did a linguistics degree, let’s be real.) Firstly, there’s 140 years (give or take) and a whole ocean between what Elias thinks of as English and what Tyler thinks of as English. Languages evolve, kids. Just think about the number of neologisms that pop up all over the place (and that’s just in the lexicon, to say nothing of syntax). Think about what’s happened to the word ‘gay’ (as this book does for a moment, I’ll give it that). And also think about things like vowel shifts. In America, there’s this big one called the Northern Cities Vowel Shift, which basically undoes the Great Vowel Shift post-Chaucer in England. And not to be nitpick-y, but for Elias, who has no idea of what New York Americans speak like, that’s got to be a problem. And yet, besides some words (most of which relate to technologies), Elias seems perfectly comfortable with New York English. And all the American characters just shake their heads and go, ah, he’s English. So language would be part of the worldbuilding for the historical setting (but all it really seemed to consist of is removing any contractions from Elias’ speech). Honestly, the worldbuilding was poor. Like I said before, I couldn’t even tell which of the two POVs was supposed to be Victorian first up. I think maybe it could have done with a few more chapters before the time travelling happens, to set up Elias’ position in his world (because there’s not a lot of that, and it does just seem like he’s a selfish brat albeit with awful parents), and to properly describe the setting.

Anyway, nitpicking like that aside, there were some genuine issues I had with this book, which I have labelled for myself as “We Need to Talk About Lesbians” and “We Need to Talk About Oscar”. Let’s start with the lesbians, because they’ll take less time. These lesbians, Trissa and Kat, appear once (though are mentioned once more). When they appear, they do so as a litmus test for whether Elias is homophobic, essentially. They also at this point serve the purpose of highlighting Tyler’s lesbophobia (though clearly unintentionally). Essentially, he’s at a party with Elias, and they’re talking sexuality. And, post litmus test of Trissa and Kat, Tyler kisses Elias. What happens is that everyone starts staring at them. And, I kid you not, Elias thinks this:

"Anger formed like a pit in Tyler’s core. It seemed unfair that everyone was super cool around Trissa and Kat, but then as soon as “Ty” kissed someone, they let their homophobia show."

Lesbians are less oppressed than gay men, folks! Then we get the next line, which suggests that maybe they think it’s gross because they believe Tyler and Elias are cousins. But does Tyler retract this above statement? Have an oh shit that’s not it moment? No, he does not. Tyler, you ever hear about this little bit of homophobia that has people assume women are just being affectionate because they’re friends? Clearly not.

Anyway, our handy lesbian litmus test also gets an earlier run-out. In which Tyler says that, although these are the only other two LGBT people in the school (I doubt that, but okay Tyler we’ll run with it), he’s still lonely:

"It would be a little less lonely if either of the other two were interested in guys, but unfortunately both Trissa and Kat were lesbians."

But, don’t worry! Here’s Oscar:

"That said, Oscar was good at empathising, being one of only a handful of black students at the school."

So. Our mate Tyler doesn’t even bother trying to connect with them. He’s just looking for someone who can connect with him. Or who at least tries to. I mean, obviously all bigotry and oppression is the same anyway.

This leads my nicely onto my next point. Oscar. As stated in the above line, he’s one of the only non-white pupils at this school. In fact, he is the only non-white character in the whole book (or, I assume, because none of the rest of them get their race or ethnicity specifically pointed out in the same way). Now, Oscar at least doesn’t just show up to talk about oppression or be a litmus test for racism (although he does serve these two functions as well). The talk about oppression is what I mean by the above bit really. (A little context: the line before the first quote is "It was lonely being one of only three out qu**r kids at a prep school in Jersey.")

The second time Oscar shows up, he’s being used as a litmus test for whether Elias is racist. No, seriously.

"[He knew] virtually nothing about Eli’s family or upbringing; if he was sheltered or had been raised in a more progressive household. Would he say something racist to Oscar?"

But, no worries folks, he doesn’t.

Oscar then disappears for a bit, but shows up later on as a background character for their trip into New York City. And then again, after Tyler fesses up about where Elias is from. At this point, we stumble a bit again. Oscar sneaks into Tyler’s bedroom and asks to borrow his laptop (Tyler is not there), ostensibly to get some footage for a birthday video. And then the video of Elias’ arrival gets uploaded to twitter and goes viral. What the narrative suggests then, is that Oscar broke Tyler’s trust and stole the video from him (he doesn’t actually, don’t worry. We (and Tyler) are just led to believe that’s the case). But that it goes in that direction didn’t feel so good.

Some small, final, little pet peeves:

Elias apparently got into both Oxford and Cambridge when you cannot actually apply to the both of them. They don’t let you.

Describing Elias’ accent as firstly “a British accent”. What? All of them at once? And then saying it’s adorable. Now, I don’t know about you, but posh Southern English accents? One of the most grating things I’ve heard in my life. Nothing adorable about it.

Why would you have them pretend to be cousins and then kiss? Why? What does it actually add to the story?

This isn’t even instalove in terms of lacking development of Elias and Tyler’s relationship. It’s just like, one day they’re friendly, then they kiss, and the next they’re deciding they don’t mind if people call them boyfriends (they don’t even know anything about one another). Instalove has more relationship development than this. Do they even like each other as more than friends? Are they even attracted to one another? Who knows, but at the end Elias said “I love you” and my genuine reaction was SINCE WHEN.

So… who actually leaked that video? Are we supposed to believe it’s just some rando hacker?

Anyway. This was a long review, so thanks for reading all my ramblings. TL;DR yeah, not worth it.

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This book is so innocently sweet! Is that a thing? I don’t know.

“The Time Traveler’s Guide to Modern Romance” sees Elias who is a hot mess and on the verge of being sent away to a reform school where he can no longer embarrass his parents when his grandfather gives him a pocket watch that allows him to travel through time. In present day Tyler is a normal student who wants nothing more than to feel like he belongs and more importantly to share his life with someone when Elias drops into his lap, but things don’t stay happy for long when the past catches up to them and threatens to upset their future.

I’ve read a previous book by this author and I didn’t really care for it so I was nervous when starting this but thankfully all of my problems with the writing were much better handled with this story. We get to see it from both Tyler and Elias’s point of view as one struggles to deal with the time traveler sharing his dorm room and the other tries to fit in to a world that is vastly different from his own.

We never figure out how the watch works or where the grandfather obtained it which is fine because for the most part this is a story that focuses on these two young men and their shared experiences centuries apart and how fate, chance or whatever you believe in brought them together in the end.

It’s a very simple story with not a lot of angst which is nice because I don’t think it could have supported too much drama but the characters are sweet enough to carry this light romance from beginning to end without you really looking too deeply at some of the more basic plot points making it all around a nice novel.

**special thanks to the publishers and netgalley for providing an arc in exchange for a fair and honest review!**

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A sweet YA time travel romance. Predictable but a nice read. Told from both Eli and Tyler's perspectives, it was a light fast read.

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NOTE: This is my first review here, and it seems to be the first review for this book. Such a responsibility!

You need to know that I picked this book for review without knowing much about its plot. I simply saw a gorgeous cover and "time travel" (one of my favourite things in the fiction world), and hit request. What I'm
saying here is: I had no idea this was a romance. I don't typically read romance novels. As such, I admit I am about 99% inexperienced in the genre. My opinion on the book is definitely influenced by that lack of genre knowledge. I cannot tell you, dear reader, whether this book is a great representative of YA romances. I cannot tell you whether it is something you've read a thousands of times or a new and unexplored idea.

But I can tell you this: It is sweet. It is cute. A bit of a Kate & Leopold sweet and cute, if you are into that. It explores a "fish out of water" scenario for our time traveler, and those chapters were probably my fav.

Also - in case this is not obvious from the blurb - this is a m/m romance. This gives a new look into some of the old tropes (at least it did for me.) Now, I am not a gay man (or a man, period) so it is not for me to judge this aspect in terms of representation. However, there is a definite effort in discussing these themes. I particularly liked that the book openly uses the word "bisexual". It openly (if shortly) talks about issues of same-sex relationships in the past and today. Do not be mistaken, though: this is not an "issue" book. Actually, this is probably what I liked about it: this is a sweet romance novel that just happens to be between two guys.

What I didn't like? As I said earlier, I am not familiar with the genre. The book seemed too short for my taste. If you are looking for a plot that focuses on complexities of time travel, this is not a story for you. Some things do rely on coincidences way too much. Also, I found romance to be a bit on the "insta love" side, although this could be due to the word count.

In general, this is a cute book for someone looking for a sweet m/m romance with a dash of time travel.

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