I read mostly YA and MG books but every now and then I also pick up an adult novel. The title of today’s book intrigued me right away and the synopsis sounded interesting as well. I was provided with a copy of The Psychology of Time Travel by Netgalley in exchange for a honest review. Was my venture into adult fiction fruitful? Keep on reading to find out!

 In 1967, four female scientists worked together to build the world’s first time machine. But just as they are about to debut their creation, one of them suffers a breakdown, putting the whole project—and future of time travel—in jeopardy. To protect their invention, one member is exiled from the team—erasing her contributions from history.

Fifty years later, time travel is a big business. Twenty-something Ruby Rebello knows her beloved grandmother, Granny Bee, was one of the pioneers, though no one will tell her more. But when Bee receives a mysterious newspaper clipping from the future reporting the murder of an unidentified woman, Ruby becomes obsessed: could it be Bee? Who would want her dead? And most importantly of all: can her murder be stopped?

Traversing the decades and told from alternating perspectives, The Psychology of Time Travel introduces a fabulous new voice in fiction and a new must-read for fans of speculative fiction and women’s fiction alike

Cover

This is an interesting cover and I quite like it. The longer you look at the cover, the more details you’ll see and they fit the story so well. I listened to the audiobook for this one and the cover for that one has even more details! The four scientists at the bottom made me so happy to see. I also really like that there are years on this cover.

 

When you’re a time traveler, the people you love die, and you carry on seeing them, so their death stops making a difference to you. The only death that will ever change things is your own.

Story

The Psychology of Time Travel is a pretty complex book and it demands your full attention when reading it. There a lot of different characters and different timelines. For me it wasn’t always completely clear which year I was reading about and I couldn’t look it up as I was listening to the audiobook. Apart from different timelines we also have different storylines. Since it’s not told linear it can get a little confusing at times, but believe me, its worth it in the end!

As mentioned, there are a lot of characters but slowly it all comes together and that was so beautiful and so much fun. I especially love love loved how all the smaller POV’s came together with the bigger ones. The story has a murder mystery as well, but it was like a very chill one? I felt like the murder mystery was a very small part of the story but the resolve was super satisfying! The ending of the book brought tears to my eyes <3

It was super interesting to think about how time travel would effect the psyche of the time travelers. I haven’t seen this done before and especially as a psychologist I loved this. This might actually have been my favorite part of the whole story. For example, the time travelers check when and how they die and who the marry. This also has an effect on their actions and it was so interesting to read and to think about. Would you want to know these things?

A relationship between equals isn’t possible if one person has all the knowledge.

Characters

Like I said, I listened to the audiobook and that was so well done. There were a lot of different accents during the story and it was so enjoyable to hear them all be done so well. I loved all the different representation we got in this story. It’s quite a diverse story with a focus on women in all sizes and shapes, colors and sexual orientations.

There are a lot of characters and I won’t talk about all of them but I do want to mention a couple of them. Barbara or Bee is the first character you really get to know and I loved her a lot. She was quite relatable and endured a lot during her life. I loved her storyline and her growth.

Now Margaret was a super unlikable character and I kinda hated her. She is very cruel and her ambition makes her loose sight of what it important in life and what is ethical.

Ruby was quite interesting to read about and I really liked her. But one of my favorite characters was Odette! I loved her and her mind. She kept going until she was satisfied and I loved that resolve.

A very enjoyable read that needs your full attention. Definitely one I would recommend and I loved the focus on women.