Earth & Sky

3.5 Stars

“There's a perfect dependability to math. No matter how many times you perform the same operations, the answer's always the same. As the factors expand out in their unshakeable pattern, my heartbeat steadies, the chill ebbs, and the wrong feeling fades away.”

I loved the premise of this book. You have the planet Kemya, where it citizens have basically turned Earth into an experiment. Travelers and Enforcers from Kemya alter the course of history, and they have been doing it for thousands of years. I loved that you had aliens involved in human history and basically controlling its course, but then you have the added ability of time travel.

The main character in this book, Skylar, is has anxiety and is obsessed with the number 3. She is consumed with this idea of wrongness and things not being right in the world. A lot of her mannerisms were annoying and at times she failed to realize the true significance of her actions in the past and how much one little change could effect the entire future. While Skylar was helpful to Win in terms of finding the weapon, she was not a very strong character. I wish she could have been written as a stronger female character. This is not to say she was weak, but there were many times where her characterization irked me.

As for the other main character, we have Win. Win is an alien rebel searching for a weapon to destroy the experiment on Earth. I did not have any major issues with him as a character. I also appreciated that the romance was not obnoxious in this book. There is definitely a connection between Skylar and Win, but this book focused more on their mission and their friendship rather than romantic feelings for each other. I'm sure their relationship will be explored in subsequent books though.

The main reason I'm rating this book the way I am is the writing. The writing was simple, easy to follow and enjoyable. But it fell flat for me, there was nothing spectacular about it and there was nothing that kept me on the edge of my seat waiting to see what would happen. While I did appreciate the simplicity of the writing in certain aspects of the book, there were other times when the writing did not fit my vision of the story. For the premise of this book, there was a large lack of true action. Yes, Skylar and Win were on the run from Enforcers and travel both across the world and time, but I did not have a big sense of adventure or action during their travels and “battles.”

Overall, this was an interesting start to the trilogy. I really like this premise, especially with the time travel. I'm also invested in this book enough that I do want to pick up the sequel and see what happens next in this world. However, I was not blow away by this book.

I received a copy of this book from the publisher via NetGalley in exchange for an honest review

Ever since she was a kid, Skylar gets feelings or sensations of wrongness from the most normal things. When she freaks out about a bomb that no one saw and disappeared as quickly as it appeared, she feels like she has completely lost her grip on reality. And then she meets Win, a mysterious boy who somehow knows about the bomb that came and somehow understands her ‘panic attacks' completely. After being chased by a group of otherworldly-looking humans carrying weapons Sky had never seen before, Win admits that he is a time-travelling alien rebel hell-bent on stopping scientists from his planet who are experimenting on earth.

Win tells Sky that the sensations of wrongness that she gets are the effects of shifts in the time rift caused by time travellers and takes her back in time to different countries in search of missing pieces left behind by their rebel group's MIA leader- pieces to a device that will stop the aliens from messing with earth's timelines.

Earth & Sky primarily caught my attention because of its Doctor Who vibes. Time traveller picks up a female companion to help him save earth? Sounds like a fun read, right? Unfortunately, the book wasn't as exciting as I expected. Yes, the plot was pretty interesting but I think that the whole concept of a species from another world manipulating Earth just wasn't explained clearly enough. It just didn't sell for me because of that and I found myself stumbling over sentences and getting confused a lot. The world-building was just too weak to hold a massive plot like that.

Sky was a pretty boring protagonist and Win didn't really stand out much for me. I didn't feel a connection with them at all. They went through this cycle of travelling to a timeline, getting chased, finding the piece they need, getting chased again, and returning to Sky's timeline to rest. It got pretty repetitive after a while because there weren't any wow moments that heightened my excitement. I did really enjoy the first part of the book because it started so high, but it just didn't go anywhere after that. Earth & Sky had the makings of a great read, but I think that it just tried to accomplish too much that it fell short in the end.

Where to begin with this review? Megan Crewe is an author that I admire. So when I saw that she had a new book on its way, and that it was Science Fiction, I was thoroughly excited. I love Sci Fi, and I love it even more when it's done well in YA. I had high hopes! Perhaps a little too high.

The beginning of the story was interesting enough. Skylar's ability to see the wrongness around her intrigued me. It wasn't until later that I learned she was actually seeing time shifts, but the idea of her being the only who could see things that were a little bit off caught me up. I wanted to know more about her character, and more about her ability. I wasn't exactly a fan of Skylar, to be honest. Her OCD tendencies grated on a bit. Still, she was different enough that I was willing to let that go in favor of seeing what happened next.

Then, things slowed down. To almost a snail's pace. Yes, there is time travel here. In fact, there are aliens and time travel involved. Those two things alone should have kept my interest. Sadly, that wasn't the case. Win's existence was oddly introduced, his backstory jarringly put into place, and then suddenly we were time traveling. Yet even that wasn't all that interesting to me. Nothing about Skylar and Win's journey struck me. Nothing made me want to keep madly reading to reach the ending. It all felt flat, and I was just sad.

Credit where credit is due, the places that Skylar and Win visit are well researched. I just wished for that much vividness in the rest of the book.