Fast and smooth read that will make readers wonder about how one simple event/action might end up altering the universe. Neat romance as well. ( )

Let me start out by saying that the beginning of this review may not be complete fair since the review copy I received missed the ending. Seriously, the ending – a book without ending is like, well, like a book without ending! It was only a couple of pages (I think) so I got the jest of it, but still – I was pissed! So I may rant a bit about this (as you may be able to tell) but it hasn’t affected my rating, I promise!

I actually liked both Ryan and Eden. They aren’t perfect (at all! – Eden is so annoying when she keeps asking Ryan questions even though he already told her that he can’t tell her anything and Ryan is a bit of an idiot when he asks about the food, like, if you’re going back in time, at least make sure you know about that time periode!) but they are kind of smart and their relationship is cute and well developed. I had hoped that the relationship between Eden and Connor was just at interesting, but their relationship was a stupid catastrophe. How Eden couldn’t figure out that Connor liked her is beyond me and I’ll never understand why she tolerated his annoying ass!

The story is intriguing at first, but as it unravels it becomes more and more boring and convenient. And yet, I don’t really understand some parts of it, like, if they stopped the thing Ryan went back in time to stop, wouldn’t they stop time travel from being invented at all? Then they wouldn’t be able to go back in time to stop the event and then time travel would be invented, making sure that Ryan could travel back in time to prevent it…. That’s some loop! I just don’t get it. And the end (at least the part I got to read *ranting*) was too convenient and obvious and easy, way too easy.

Thankfully, it was a quick read and even though I wasn’t really a fan of the story, it’s all right if you just need a light read. It has its fun moments and some cute moments, but don’t expect something mind blowing. ( )

After Eden is a young adult time travel romance, and fairly predictable. A new boy, Ryan Westland, comes to Eden Anfield’s school, and he is the hottest boy anyone has seen. He befriends Eden and her best friend Connor, who is secretly in love with Eden. Eden quickly discovers that Ryan must be from the future (he doesn’t know what pizza is!) and that his appearance on 2012 Earth has something to do with both her and Connor.

But a lot is at stake, and Eden is (a) kind of dumb and (b) not as reliable as she claims. This puts her in a great deal of danger.

Evaluation: The book isn’t too bad, but I think I wouldn’t recommend it except for tweens and younger teens. ( )

After Eden by Helen Douglas is a (currently) stand-alone story combining time travel with light YA romance. I was excited while reading the first half, and then mellowed to only intrigued during the second half. After Eden has an intriguing premise with a fair amount of sci-fi potential, but it ended up emphasizing the romance elements instead of really digging in to the sci-fi possibilities. It’s a light and quick read (took me about 3 hours), so if you are in the mood for something easy and fun, you might give it a try ;).
Note: I received an eARC of After Eden through Netgalley in exchange for an honest review. Some things might be different in the final version.



After Eden by Helen Douglas
Published by Bloomsbury on Nov. 7th, 2013
Genres: Sci-fi, YA
Length: 288 pages
How I got my copy: NetGalley
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The day Eden met Ryan changed her world forever. Actually, not just her world. Ryan has time traveled from the future to save the world. In a few weeks, Eden’s best friend Connor will discover a new planet—one where human life is possible. The discovery will make him famous. It will also ruin the world as we know it. When Ryan asks Eden for help, she must choose between saving the world and saving her best friend’s greatest achievement. And a crush on Ryan complicates things more than she could have imagined. Because Connor is due to make the discovery after the girl he loves breaks his heart. That girl is Eden.

Strengths:
Time travel! I’m a fan of time travel books that have a fairly logical reason why the time travel is happening (not that I have anything against the Doctor traveling around for kicks, hehe), so I was happy to see that the travelers in After Eden had a very good reason for coming back.
The romance is pretty darn adorable. It’s fairly obvious from the beginning, but I’m always happy when I like both characters and they behave cutely instead of dramatically.
The writing in After Eden is fluid and easy. I found myself at 50% in the first evening without any effort.
Ryan’s big secret has some really interesting sci-fi elements to it. I won’t spoil it, but I did enjoy having that extra dimension.
Weaknesses:
Whenever teenage characters decide they are deeply in love within a short time of knowing each other, I roll my eyes. Just… gah.
After Eden was fairly jumpy at times. All of a sudden one scene would be over and another begun without much of a transition and I had to orient myself to figure out what was going on again.
The plot and ending were predictable and fairly cheesy. I’ll give you three guesses how things end….
When characters are running for their life or trying to save the future, I should probably be riveted, but I just wasn’t while reading After Eden. This was partly due to it being clear that things would work out, and partly just from the writing style.
Summary:
After Eden was cute and enjoyable, but not much more. I certainly didn’t have any negative reactions to it, but I wish that the sci-fi storyline and time travel had been more emphasized. This is definitely “light sci-fi” since the same plot almost could have been told without any time travel being involved: boy meets girl and the rest is history.

3 Stars ( )

I love the premise of these kinds of books, time travel and mystery boys, I mean, how can you go wrong? Well, luckily Ms. Douglas didn't allow me to find out, because it was amazing. I got hooked right from the beginning, and really appreciated Ryan as a love interest, the friendship between Eden, Connor and Megan
I connected with Eden as well. I am similar in personality to her, not the most popular, but on the fringes of all the groups. She is a normal teen, and easy to relate to. She is practical, and she handles stress admirably.
I also appreciated the setting. We are in Britian for a change, and that adds a new spin on a few things.
Ryan was funny, thoughtful and I wanted to know everything about him. Since he was obviously hiding things, it was my mission (well, maybe I needed Eden to help a little) to find out what. I wanted to know why he didn't know about pizza, as well as the reason he doesn't know who figures like Hitler were. Of course, I knew some because of the old synopsis, but not everything. The romance was sweet, and I had to wonder how it was going to work out as I did uncover some of the mysteries. But I was definitely rooting for it to work one way or another. He was attentive to Eden, he
I did feel for Connor. I like the easy friendship and trust that he had with Eden, but unfortunately I couldn't root for him. It was obvious to me that he liked Eden more than friends, how she saw him only, but I def understand why Eden wouldn't see him that way. They grew up together, and she didn't want their comfortable to change. She saw him as the boy he used to be. I wish that he could've been in love with someone else, because he is a good guy and I want good things for him. I do wish that he wouldn't have been so rude and mean to Ryan, but I can see where he is coming from with that.
The world building was fine. I understood all of the concepts but that is not why I like it, everything being well explained and deeply rooted in science. I am all there for the premise, the execution, the romance and the entertainment. But I wasn't confused, and it seemed like it is within the realm of possibility in the scifi sense.
Some of the twists I actually saw coming, but it didn't mess anything up for me.
The ending was sweet, and it tied everything up well. I can see where the next book is heading, because there is hint of the next conflicts, but It was hea even more than I expected because I didn't know how they would pull it off.

Bottom Line: Quick read with sweet romance. ( )