All Our Yesterdays by Cristin Terrill - Review

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All Our Yesterdays is now topping the list of my favorite time travel stories - right up there with Doctor Who and Back to the Future!

Em, while imprisoned in an underground military base with only the voice of her friend Finn in the next cell to keep her company finds, finds a note from her past self.  She's tried everything she can to stop what's happening - the doctor and the war raging outside - using time travel but it always leads up to the same horrific present.  The note, however, gives her the one final option to fix things - by killing him.  

Marina's boyfriend James is a famous science prodigy, but in one disastrous evening their lives completely fall apart.  Marina will do anything to protect James.  Will she be able to survive learning the shocking truth coming back from the future to fix things in the form of her four years older self?

I hope that summary didn't give too much away and made sense! 

Cristin Terrill's debut novel is absolutely stunning - I had super high expectations after reading the reviews and I was not in the least disappointed - I adored All Our Yesterdays!  I don't know if I can express just how much I loved it, but for me to compare it to both Doctor Who and Back to the Future that's extremely high praise coming from me!  

The author succeeds greatly at writing her characters, especially Marina/Em.  You can see just how much Marina grows over the course of the story to become Em, a very strong young woman willing to change the world even if she won't be in it so long as Marina will have a better world.  She also succeeds at world-building, which is always difficult in time travel books, but we get a good deal of insight throughout on the past, present, and future here.  The author leaves the reader to put together the clues, as well, which I really loved attempting to figure things out, but some of the twists really through me for a loop.  The romance worked for both Mariana and James, and Em and Finn, which I don't often say.

I want to say so much more in my review, but I don't want to spoil it for anyone!  Either way, this goes down as one of my favorite books so far this year!  If you enjoy time travel stories and can't resist a good reference to them (Back to the Future and Doctor Who, primarily), you will love this!  If you're not so much into time travel, but do enjoy a tightly plotted, fast-paced, action-packed read featuring brilliantly written characters, you should most definitely check out All Our Yesterdays by Cristin Terrill because it's a real gem!

I'm really looking forward to the sequel although I'm not quite sure what it will be about considering this was wrapped up pretty well.  I would love to see this faithfully translated to the big screen!

This book was read from June 11 - 18, 2014 and this review is also on Goodreads.