Time Riders | Alex Scarrow | Review
“Time travel is a terrifying weapon, far more powerful than anything ever before conceived,' he said grimly.'Mankind just isn't ready for that kind of knowledge. We're like children casually playing with an atom bomb.” - Alex Scarrow, Time Riders
Time Riders by Alex Scarrow is a story about three teenagers from different times that are all saved a few seconds before they're supposed to die. They're saved by an old man who claims to have another option than dying. Liam was supposed to die on the Titanic in 1912, Maddy was supposed to die in a plane crash in 2010 and Sal should've died in a fire in 2026. Nut now they find them selves being a part of a team that's supposed to fix changes in history that are a caused by time traveling.
I liked the concept of Time Riders because lets be honest, three teenagers traveling through time to fix things when history has been altered by other time travelers sounds pretty exciting. I also have to say that the concept is pretty well executed. There’s just a few details that doesn’t quite add up in my mind but I guess that’s a general problem when writing about time travel. Some things just don’t make sense. But they’re just details, nothing that makes me too confused or that takes away too much of the reading experience. But still, there’s a few things that I don’t really get and that’s always a little annoying.
I have a pretty neutral feeling towards the characters in Timer Riders. I don’t love them, I don’t think they’re that original and I don’t care that much about them. But I think they’re pretty decent. They’re not too annoying, too stereotypical or too unbelievable. Let's just say they’re decent enough. The story line is interesting enough that it kept me reading for a while every time I picked up the book. My problem was that when I stopped reading I never felt that eager to pick it up again so it took me a lot longer to finish this book than it usually does. Alex Scarrow’s writing style in this book doesn’t really speak to me. It’s not bad or sloppy but I think it’s a bit too obvious that it’s written for a younger audience and I don’t think that has to be the case with young adult novels.
It might sound like this review is going in a very negative direction and that might be a bit unfair because this is not a bad book. It has an interesting story line and pretty well written characters. But there’s a just few things that affects my reading experience in a negative way. I feel like I would have enjoyed this much more if I was 11-13 years but I have to write this review based on my personal reading experience. And to be honest I don’t really think that’s an excuse because I’ve read so many excellent young adult novels that I’ve really loved even if I’m a lot closer to 30 than being a teen.
Time Riders is an okay young adult adventure book. It’s fun and fast paced, but don’t expect too much more. I don’t regret reading it because it has some really interesting chapters and I do really like the whole concept of the story but I wish it was a bit more well written. I give Time Riders by Alex Scarrow 3/5 stars.
This post was written by regular reviewer Niina, get to know her here.
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