Em and Finn are being held for some unknown reason. They are in separate cells, but can talk to each other. They are being tortured because their captors want information that Em and Finn are not willing to give. They must get to "Cassandra" and "kill him." But they have no idea how they are going to be able to escape.
We soon find out how they escape, and "Cassandra" is a machine that will take them back in time so they can fix whatever the problem is that has gotten them in this predicament. And it involves killing someone. The someone is not only an acquaintance, but is their best friend. So things get complicated, needless to say.
Time travel is hard. There are so many paradoxes that an author has to deal with. I really liked the way Terrill handled the time travel elements. She also didn't shy away from the brutality that would have occurred, given the situation these characters were in. You felt the torture, and the associated pain was real.
The way the story develops and the reader finds out about the past as we go along was brilliant. I was never confused and found the chronology easy to put together. I appreciated that our narrator, although the same person, used two different names. Otherwise, there definitely would have been confusion.
All Our Yesterdays is exciting. It really kept me on the edge of my seat for much of the book. Now, I thought Em and Finn made some bad decisions, but I understood why, given that their task was in no way easy. I think the ending of All Our Yesterdays is one of the best endings I have read in a long time. I couldn't predict exactly how it would end, but I loved the way it came together. Once again, it made total sense, cleared up pretty much all the loose ends, and was even hopeful!
All Our Yesterdays is definitely a book I'm looking forward to recommending to a bunch of my teen readers. I'm recommending it to you too!
Published by Disney-Hyperion, September 3, 2013
eARC obtained from Netgalley
368 pages
Rating: 5/5
So glad you enjoyed this one as well. I thought you would.
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