I love time travel books, so I was totally intrigued when I first read the description for Before Time Runs Out by Amy Matayo. I mean, a mysterious book that sends you back in time, two different time travelers from different eras, Charles Dickens, ghost clubs–sign me up!
Graduate student Bree Sanders is failing the one class she needs to get her degree. So when her professor gives her an ultimatum—ace her thesis or risk having to repeat her final semester—she knows she has to pull out all the stops. After scrambling for an idea, she decides to create her own Ghost Club, a club that blames ghosts for unsolved crimes, the same type of club originally founded two centuries ago by Charles Dickens. What she doesn’t expect is to find an original copy of one of Dickens’ early works, or to be transplanted into Dickens’s actual ghost club meeting, circa 1870, the instant she picks it up. When Bree shows up in nineteenth-century England wearing cut-offs and an old t-shirt, her only option is to hide. The London of 1870 won’t look kindly on a woman dressed like her. So, when Theodore Keyes finds her tucked behind a bookcase at the King’s College library and immediately demands to know where she came from, she knows he doesn’t belong here either. Turns out she’s right; the same book caused him to time-travel from 1947 almost three months ago and he’s been stuck in England since. Together, the two vow to work side-by-side in their search for the lost book that will take them home. But as their feelings for one another deepen, Theo and Bree are caught between a desire to return to the lives they each left behind, and the knowledge that if they find the book, they won’t be able to leave together. In the end, they each must decide which sacrifice is worth making—the one that will cost them their hearts, or the one that could cost them their very existence.
At first, this book was just as awesome as I expected it to be. I was hooked by the first page and blazed through the first several chapters. It was witty, hilarious, and so intriguing. Both MC’s are major book lovers, and some of their thoughts about books just tickled me. For instance: “I suppose I could return the books to their proper resting places, but I haven’t yet looked at them thoroughly enough. Now that I’ve seen them and held them, they’ve become precious pets, and I’m loathed to let them go, not before I try to adopt them and take them home with me. They can sleep in my bed. Share my food. I wouldn’t even care if they pee on my floor. Too far?” I was cracking up! ???
The middle of the book began to lag for me, though. I wasn’t as interested in the story anymore and the characters, mainly Bree, began to irritate me. For someone who is supposed to love history, she was pretty clueless about it. She also behaved so irrationally at times! I know that OCD quirks are part of her character, because of what happened in her past, but some of her actions just felt ridiculous. Because of all this, I was tempted to abandon the book, but I was still intrigued to see how the story would play out, so I pushed on.
The last 25% of the book ended up redeeming the story for me in a lot of ways. The author through some major curveballs that literally had me saying out loud, “Wait, what?!?!” It pulled me back into the story like I had been in the beginning, and I was eager to keep going and see how everything would resolve.
Obviously this wasn’t my favorite read of all time, but it has a lot of interesting and fun aspects to it that make it unique, so I would still recommend it. Maybe some of the things I didn’t care for will come across different to another reader. ??♀️ I have, after all, seen some great reviews for it. If you love time travel books, like me, be sure to check this one out! 3.5 Stars.
