Review Detail

I’LL STOP THE WORLD by Lauren Thoman is a YA Time Travel novel split between present day and 1985. Justin, a high school senior, doesn’t have much direction in his life, until he finds himself decades in the past, the week before his grandparents die in a fire. Without much family in present day, other than his alcoholic mother and Stan, a peculiar relative, getting to know his grandparents, who are the image of a loving family, makes it painful to imagine what could have been. Justin now feels extra pressure to somehow help thwart history, not only for his family’s benefit but also because he believes that successfully altering the timeline could be his ticket back to his previous life. Blending into the 80s without being suspicious is difficult for him. However, with the help of Rose Yin, the young girl who first finds Justin, they may just pull it all off.

What is successful about this book is how elaborately and skillfully it’s been plotted. The way Thoman first plants a seed and then weaves the thread throughout the story is so smart, as everything ties into one another and makes sense in the end. I love all the surprising “ah-ha” moments I had, realizing “OH! That’s why that happened!” There are also several plot twists I didn’t see coming, which is always exciting.

That being said, this novel would have truly flown off the shelf for me if the pacing had been a bit quicker, particularly for this genre. The book starts off slowly with a lot of exposition— some of which is crucial, but we still could’ve gotten into the action faster. It takes over one hundred pages before Justin finally time travels and gets started on his journey. After that, there are a lot of repetitive items the cast of characters mull over that could’ve been trimmed to allow for speed and clarity of story. Also, in regards to characters, because we get so many POVs, I lost a bit of connection to them all. I love all the different stories that Thoman squeezed into this book, but perhaps cutting down the characters to those only relevant to Justin’s task would’ve given more space to get attached to those remaining.

Overall though, I’LL STOP THE WORLD is a great book if you’re looking for some entertainment, nostalgia, and a bit of teenage existential dread.