This book was fully unhinged. Nothing about it made sense - from the plot to the characters to the time travel. Just the premise alone was a major plot hole, let alone how that premise played out. There was no consistency in how time travel was treated, or consistency in the characters’ motivations. Though I might be able to see an appeal for a certain type of reader, I was not that reader.

First of all thank you to NetGalley for providing me with an ARC in return for my HONEST feedback

When I first saw the description of this book, I was baffled. “Who in the world could be the audience for this story?” I thought. I was so curious, that I requested it, despite being a queer exevangelical with religious trauma. Then I read the book. And it was so poorly written. So full of antisemitism. So focused on whiteness equaling beauty. So full of extraneous explanations and tangents. Such weird characterization and character choices. Now I know that there are very few audiences for this book. And was left with questions about the author and the publisher. Turns out the publisher is one of those that you have to pay to get your book published. Makes sense.

Strap in this will be my longest review ever.

First I will give a plot summary.
The president of the United States gets super angry at God, because his son dies and he feels that God should have saved him because of all the good he has done the country. Because of the recent invention of a time machine, he decides that he will back a mission to go back in time. Most of the people on the mission believe that it is to see if Jesus was real and really God’s son. But the real mission, is to either bring Jesus to the future or to kill him before he gets on the cross. Thus eliminating Christianity. The president recruits several people to do this. He also recruits, our main character and love interest, FBI Agent Jennifer.

Jennifer is good at everything but dating. She is a virgin. She isn’t let in on the secret mission. She is excited about going back to Jesus Time, because she has always wondered if Jesus was real. She has a weird romantic dream about Jesus making her start to think more about faith. So before her mission, she takes a trip to Jerusalem. She does a lot of sight seeing but mostly she is followed by two priests who want to take her to talk to the pope.

The pope knows about the mission because the First Lady told her priest who told his superior etc. about her husbands plan. The pope tries to recruit Jennifer. Jennifer stays neutral, but is now suspicious of the president.

They go back in time. They all are given time appropriate clothing and money. But no attempt to learn the language is made clear? Which is fine narratively because everyone in the past seems to speak in modern English. There is also no plan for the team members. They all just wonder around. The evil recruited team members start doing evil stuff and killing team members who might oppose their mission.

Meanwhile, Jennifer goes to find Jesus. She finds him and he is fascinated by her. She is the most beautiful person he has ever seen. Jennifer follows Jesus around and he introduces her to everyone. Jennifer and Jesus fall in love immediately. Jennifer buys him tons of food, mostly bread which is his favorite thing, rubs him down with Chanel lotion after discovering that “expensive oils smell bad” (He adores Chanel lotion and requests it frequently after the first time), introduces him to protein bars, and generally just teaches Jesus a lot of lessons that he can incorporate into his sermons, and beats up several people who mean him harm (Jesus seems to dislike and admire this at the same time). She also pisses off Judas, who is very heavily implied to be gay, and makes him jealous of her relationship with Jesus, this is his motivation for betraying him. She also meets the soldier who pierces Jesus’ side and Jesus and Jennifer decide the spear he carry’s is called The Spear Of Destiny.

After about half the team dies, there is a plot device where once they die in the past they don’t exist even in people’s memories anymore, the main evil guy decides to kill Jennifer because she is going to get in his way. He almost does, but the soldier with The Spear of Destiny saves Jennifer. The evil dude dies and nobody remembers that anyone was in danger. Destiny Dude, named Longinus, tells her he believes in Jesus and doesn’t want to serve Rome anymore, he wants to have a farm.

Jennifer goes back to Jesus, buys tons of expensive food for The Last Supper. She also turns away the woman who anoints Jesus with perfume because she doesn’t want another woman touching him. That’s her job and she has Chanel.

Jesus sends her away before he is Crucified, telling her God sent her to him to teach him things and make him happy. She is upset but she goes. When she reaches the time machine, which by the way is disguised as a leper colony, she changes her mind and grabs a machine gun. She is going to save Jesus.

She runs towards him. Soldiers try to stop her, but she scares them by shooting a statue and at the dirt in front of their feet. They decide she is the god of war and pledge their allegiance to her. She doesn’t deny it, sends them away and runs toward Jesus. But God stops her with a wall of fire. Tells her thank you for making his son happy but she can’t save him or no one will be able to be saved. The remaining team members go back to the future before seeing if Jesus rises from the dead. Nobody else met Jesus.

They are met by a completely different president who knows who they are, even though Jennifer doesn’t remember him. Also there are now 11 commandments. The last one being “don’t change things that have already happened”. The president wants to know if Jesus exists. Jennifer says yes and goes home. Everyone she meets says she seems to have some sort of holy power. Then at the end, someone says she is the most glowing pregnant woman ever. Jennifer is confused because she is a virgin. But then thinks back to her time with Jesus. She is excited to have a baby that will save her modern world.

Ok. Now that that convoluted plot line is explained, here is a list of people who will hate this book and why.

People of color, Jewish people and non racists
- [ ] Jennifer is praised for her beauty constantly, being white and blonde. Especially when she goes back in the past. Her Aryan features are praised constantly. She has to be an angel.
- [ ] Jennifer, on her trip to Jerusalem, sees some Hasidic Jews. She “gets a kick” out of seeing them. She takes pictures of them. This upsets them and they cross the street. She yells “I have zoom” and continues taking pictures.
- [ ] Jennifer also asks for “Jewish food. Anything Jewish” on her Jerusalem trip.
- [ ] The president purposely hires a nazi to kill Jesus. Because he knows the guy hates Jewish people.
- [ ] One of the team members tries to see a prominent person. And is refused. Her body guard says something to the effect of “Of course. We forgot where we are. They are Jews. This guy is like the king of the Jews” and gives her a bunch of gold to bribe the guy to see them. This works.
- [ ] Jesus straight up says that a sect of Judaism is effeminate and naive because they don’t believe he is the messiah.
- [ ] There are a bunch of slaves everywhere. Jennifer notes that they seem happy with their lives because they don’t know anything else.


Christians
- [ ] Jennifer and Jesus fall in love
- [ ] The pope admits to bribing people with going to heaven so people will do stuff for them. (Which is true, at least in the past, but I can’t imagine Christians want it advertised)
- [ ] Jennifer teaches Jesus a lot of religious things he didn’t know. Which is sacrilegious.
- [ ] Jesus seems to admire Jennifer’s fighting abilities and gets excited that she wants to fight for him.
- [ ] At one point Jennifer knocks out Judas and Jesus is pleased with her new way to get Judas to go to sleep.
- [ ] Several times it is state that “Angels are bitches”
- [ ] Lots of Biblical inaccuracies
- [ ] Jennifer teaches Jesus that Women and men are equals

atheists, pagans and anyone of any other religion
- [ ] The one Atheist in the book is seen as being heartless and cruel. He has no morals. He is willing to kill people for no reason.
- [ ] It is stated that without Jesus dying on the cross the world will be filled with Atheists, pagans and people of other faith. This is said like it’s the worst thing in the world.

Queer and Ace people
- [ ] Judas is implied to be gay. He is bitter and jealous. He hates women. The disciples all roll their eyes and talk about how he is about women. Judas is jealous of Jennifer and this is why he betrays Jesus.
- [ ] Jesus’ mother and siblings are very relieved when they meet Jennifer. They thought he didn’t like women.
- [ ] See above but with Jesus’ disciples.
- [ ] Being effeminate is seen as a negative thing.


Women and feminists
- [ ] Everyone says Jennifer is perfect, because she is beautiful
- [ ] The pope tells her her one flaw is that no man is good enough for her
- [ ] Someone calls her a whore. Jesus tells her to remove her hood and then says something like “I’ll prove she isn’t a whore. Look how beautiful she is”
- [ ] I feel like the author was trying to make a really empowering character and just failed. She can do everything. She has no flaws.
- [ ] A really big deal is made about how pure she is.
- [ ] Anytime two women interact it’s weird and awkward and unnatural. At one point Jennifer beats up some teens for graffitiing a church and the girl teen is like “you go girl! Girl power”
- [ ] Rape is casually mentioned as a punishment by some soldiers.
- [ ] Jennifer is the only reason Jesus realizes that women and men are equals

Anyone who likes good writing and story plots
- [ ] There are so many unnecessary explanations. Like at one point a priest is explaining to another priest why the First Lady came to him instead. And the priest is like that time you were away I got close to her. And the other priest says “Ah yes! I was visiting my family in Montana.”But then there is plenty of stuff that you want explained but it never is.
- [ ] The dialogue is stilted and weird.
- [ ] They are trying to prove that Jesus was the son of god but they don’t stay to see him resurrected.
- [ ] They don’t learn the language
- [ ] They don’t have a plan. They just wander around Jerusalem
- [ ] No effort is made to act like they are from the time period.
- [ ] They aren’t supposed to change the timeline but they beat people up constantly.
- [ ] There are a lot of typos
- [ ] A lot of the sentences don’t make sense
- [ ] They make weird dialogue and character choices so that they can make bad biblical jokes. Like Jesus loves bread. He constantly wants to eat it. It’s a whole thing. And it all builds up so that Jennifer can tell him “You can’t live by bread alone”
- [ ] Jennifer wants to go back in time so that she can “learn the truth from the truth”
- [ ] Jesus called Jennifer “The whole fig tree” like instead of the whole package I guess.