Fall Break Reads: Timekeeper

Current read: The Secret History by Donna Tartt
Current listen: The Raven Boys by Maggie Stiefvater

It's been awhile AGAIN. Apologies. Last weekend I performed at Carnegie Hall AND finally saw Hamilton on Broadway. Things have been CRAZY. I've had time to read books, but not that much time to tell you about them. TRYING to get back into the habit of just doing it every time I finish a book. SO...I thought over the next few days I would tell you about some things that I've read over my teacher fall break.

First, I finished Timekeeper by Tara Sim. This was an advanced reader's copy given to me by my lovely friend Laura who is super legit and is Tara's literary agent. This is the first in a new YA fantasy trilogy that takes place in an alternate Victorian England--steampunk in the best sense. In the world of Timekeeper, clock towers literally keep the world running. If something happens to a clock tower (a misplaced gear, a cracked glass clock face, etc.), it could seriously endanger the citizens in a tower's domain. The main character, Danny Hart, is a young, talented clock mechanic, who learned all he knows from his father, Christopher, who is stuck in a Stopped town.

While Danny attempts to figure out how to save his father, he begins to take mysterious assignments in Enfield, where a clock is repeatedly having strange problems. It quickly turns out that these Enfield assignments will alter Danny's destiny, and much adventure ensues.

There are many things I loved about this book. First, I felt the world building was very well-integrated into the story and was both ambitious and believable. There is a really neat mythological set up to explain the power of the clock towers and the mechanics who control them that is just really interesting and well-written. I also felt that the writing of the characters in the novel is very well done. There was a lot of attention paid to secondary characters that gave the story a lot more meaning, and Tara Sim does not shy away from making her main characters flawed (which I REALLY appreciate). The suspense and mystery writing in this book is also VERY well executed.

My favorite thing about this book, though, is this. Danny Hart is gay. There is a gay romance element to the novel, and I find this to be incredibly significant to the future of YA as a genre. This novel has shown that gay romances do not have to be their own separate genre, nor do they have to be a cute, throw-away side story in a story with mainly heterosexual characters. The romance in this book is written just like any other romantic element of a YA fantasy or dystopian novel. They just happen to be gay characters. GOLD STAR, TARA SIM. I loved this book and look forward to reading the next in the series.

Well. Originally was going to talk about a couple more books, but I would probably ramble on about them as much as I did for Timekeeper. No one wants to read that much at once. I'll be back in the coming days with more reviews, and until then, that's all she read!