Time's Mouth by Edan Lepucki is a family saga of memory travel that mixes unique elements to explore how different types of loss moves through the bonds of a mother and child generation after generation.

Lepucki has taken domestic fiction and mapped a course through time on the back of womanhood. Ursa learns she can travel through the past of her memories. Those near her experience a euphoric feeling if she doesn't abuse the time. Soon women fleeing burdened lives flock to her and a cult-like group begins to form.

Its a bittersweet novel of children raising children and not shown appropriate love by their parents with most enduring abandonment through a vicious cycle. The characters are vivid and fleshed out with actions and moments that are equally heartwarming and sad. The cultish elements had me hooked and the more supernatural elements push the story along in an almost mystery like feeling. As things start happening to Ursa's daughter-in-law and granddaughter (all estranged), a darker story starts pulling at the thread of the main plot.

I couldn't put this one down. I transitioned between reading and listening and finished this thick little number in half a day! The audiobook is narrated by Alyssa Bresnahan expertly. Different voices for each character that fit each persona all while holding true to tone and filling each scene with well laid feeling. I was pulled into each characters perspective as father, daughter, mother, lovers each play out their parts in this book. It's beautiful and visceral and weird all at the same time. Readers who enjoy domestic fiction with an almost magical realism/sci-fi element will enjoy this novel as much as I did.

Thank you Recorded Books for the gifted ALC. This stunner is one I highly recommend checking out!

Time's Mouth by Edan Lepucki, an audiobook narrated by Alyssa Bresnahan was a lifetime-long journey. It definitely was different which is good as all different is original! I am definitely happy that I choose the audiobook as I would struggle with this as a book. It felt too stretched for me.
This book is presented in multiple parts and each part covers a different generation.
It all starts with Ursa and her journey from being lonely to building a special community.
Then it moved to her son Ray and his journey to freedom and building his own life away from the community and later readers will follow Opal, Ray's daughter's story. By the end of the book, readers will find out what happened with Cherry, Opal's mother.
I liked that after finishing this book there was a feeling of closure, all questions were answered and come together nicely.
I definitely recommend this book to all readers who like to follow family sagas!
Alyssa Bresnahan did an amazing job, her voice was calming and really suitable for this book.
Thank you, NetGalley and RB Media for an advance copy!
#TimesMouth #NetGalley #RBmedia

3.5 stars

A unique time travel story that’s a family saga, a coming of age tale, & a story about breaking free from manipulation & healing from trauma. This is a long book, but if you like character driven novels and don’t mind slower pacing, this is worth a read.

[What I liked:]

•I dislike most time travel stories because they tend to have endless time loops that get very confusing & repetitive. Fortunately, this book avoids that & mainly focuses on the subtler (emotional, psychological) effects of re-experiencing a past event.

•I really enjoyed Opal & Fab’s friendship. They were cute and funny together. I also liked Isla Patricia & her funky nightgowns!

•The ending is really good! It manages to tie everything together in a meaningful way without dragging out too long or getting too sentimental.


[What I didn’t like as much:]

•This book is long and somewhat slow moving. The pacing didn’t drag in any specific place, but I feel like the novel as a whole could’ve been condensed a bit to keep more momentum going.

CW: terminal illness, cults, racism, sexism, ableism, substance abuse, mental illness, CSA, child abuse/neglect

[I received an ARC ebook copy from NetGalley in exchange for my honest review. Thank you for the book!]

4.5⭐️

As a teenager, Ursa discovers she has a special ability to travel through time, at least via her own memories. As she dives further into this gift, she forms and eventually isolates a community around her, all increasingly cult-like and obsessed with her gift, much like a group of ever-sinking addicts. This community of women (no men allowed, men are viewed as the enemy) fall further in thrall, neglecting their children more and more along the way.

Two of those children grow up and fall in love. After tragedy strikes, they become fully disillusioned and flee the community to start fresh with their future child.

I struggled at first to get into this story. I think this was in no small part due to the character of Ursa, who I found entirely unsympathetic. As the story continued, however- and especially as I, like those two teens, escaped her overwhelming presence, I become more and more drawn in to this epic and fascinating tale, and connected more and more with some of the other characters, especially Opal, who it was impossible not to root for. This is definitely a worthwhile read that will leave you thinking long after you’ve finished.

Alyssa Bresnahan did a wonderful job narrating the audiobook.

Thank you Edan Lepucki, RB Media, Recorded Books, and NetGalley for providing this ALC for review consideration. All opinions expressed are my own.

Needed…something more. More from Cherry’s POV once Opal was older? More closure with time traveling coming to an end? More time travel in general?
Not all but at least one of these elements would’ve left me more satisfied and pushed my rating up to a full 4 stars.

Thanks #netgalley for this book. I tried to enjoy this but it didn't hold my interest. When the story changed to focus on the young adults moving, I started becoming bored. This is a long book and just wasn't for me.

Cults, time travel, and wonderfully layered! Very interesting and complex. Not a super fast read for me because it gets deep! Emotional rollercoasters for evryone. Check this one out, you will not be disappointed.

Time’s Mouth is a story of mothers and daughters, of time (the past and how it affects the present), of intergenerational trauma and loss.

Edan Lepucki’s poignant prose is quietly haunting. Check out this stunningly powerful quote for yourself to get a sense for the book:

“Motherhood and loss, loss and motherhood-they went hand in hand. Your child isn’t who they were the day before, they are slipping through your fingers, they can walk, and now they can drive, and if you’re lucky, they survive, they grow up and move on from you.”

Oof, that seriously hits.

This book is perfect for readers who love family sagas and I think the use of time travel and the plot with the cult make it a truly unique one. I listened to the audiobook and the narration is great.

I prefer a more quickly paced book and heavier SciFi/paranormal themes. But if a family saga is your jam I can totally see this being a five star read for you.

⭐️⭐️⭐️💫

I was not immediately pulled in to this audiobook. I went in anticipating a Time Traveler’s Wife experience but instead got a strange and confusing tale of an annoyingly selfish female character with no endearing qualities. I almost stopped listening after the first hour, but I hung in there and I’m grateful I did.
Ray, Cherry, Opal, and even Hawk are worth waiting for. The tale grew from a story of a single self-involved woman into a saga that digs deep into the contrasting types of love that a parent holds for a child.
This is not just a science fiction book, in fact that is just a small part that looms in the background. It is more a book about dysfunctional family ties and escaping toxic situations.

Thank you to NetGalley and RB Media for gifting me with an advanced audio copy of Time’s Mouth by Edan Lepucki. In exchange I offer my honest review.

While beautifully and remarkably written, this book felt
too long. Time’s Mouth is a clever time transport literary novel with interesting characters and multi generational themes.Ursa née Sharon escapes her abusive home and arrives in San Francisco where she meets and befriends a wealthy woman. Under Caron’s tutelage Ursa creates a haven for runaways in the hills of California. Using her gifts, Ursa alters the lives of those seeking community while alienating her own family. When Ursa’s past and present collide no gifts can save what’s in store.

The narration by Alyssa Bresnahan was wonderful and definitely kept me invested in the story. I believe tighter editing would have raised my star rating.

I struggled to finish this book. An interesting look into one kind of cult life.

Ursa possesses a very special gift. She can travel through memory and revisit her past. After she flees her hometown for the counterculture glory of 1950’s California, the intoxicating potential of her unique ability eventually draws a group of women into her orbit and into a ramshackle Victorian mansion in the woods outside Santa Cruz. Yet Ursa’s powers come with a cost. Soon this cultish community of sisterhood takes an ominous turn, prompting her son, Ray, and his pregnant lover, Cherry, to flee their home for Los Angeles and reinvent themselves far from Ursa’s insidious influence. But escaping their past won’t be so easy. A series of mysterious events forces Cherry to abandon their baby, leaving Ray to raise Opal alone.

Now a teenager and still heartbroken over the abandonment of the mother she never knew, Opal must journey into her own past to reveal the generations of secrets that gave rise to the shimmering source of her family's painful legacy.

From the forests of Santa Cruz, to the 1980s glam of Melrose Avenue to a solitary mansion among the oil derricks off La Cienega Boulevard, and brimming with the double-edged capacity of memory to both heal and harm, Time’s Mouth is a poignant and evocative excavation of the bonds that bind families together.