When The World Was Flat (and we were in love) Review

  When The World Was Flat (and we were in love) by Ingrid Jonach

Synopsis

Looking back, I wonder if I had an inkling that my life was about to go from ordinary to extraordinary.

When sixteen-year-old Lillie Hart meets the gorgeous and mysterious Tom Windsor-Smith for the first time, it’s like fireworks — for her, anyway. Tom looks as if he would be more interested in watching paint dry; as if he is bored by her and by her small Nebraskan town in general.

But as Lillie begins to break down the walls of his seemingly impenetrable exterior, she starts to suspect that he holds the answers to her reoccurring nightmares and to the impossible memories which keep bubbling to the surface of her mind — memories of the two of them, together and in love.

When she at last learns the truth about their connection, Lillie discovers that Tom has been hiding an earth-shattering secret; a secret that is bigger — and much more terrifying and beautiful — than the both of them. She also discovers that once you finally understand that the world is round, there is no way to make it flat again. 

An epic and deeply original sci-fi romance, taking inspiration from Albert Einstein’s theories and the world-bending wonder of true love itself

Lisa's Review - 3.5 out of 5 stars

It is not uncommon for a book to have me in 2 minds, and have me change my opinion with a brilliant ending (or a brilliant book that has a really bad ending!) but I think for the first time ever, I just finished reading a book that had me in 3 minds! The first handful of chapters in When The World Was Flat had me thinking I had picked up a book that was way too young for me. I still quite often read YA books, and enjoy them without feeling I picked up a book written specifically for a teenager, but for a while I felt that was exactly what I had done.

Then, the story started to pick up and I had an overwhelming feeling of familiarity. The feeling actually took over me, and I spent a while trying to figure out why. Eventually, I have come to the conclusion that if you crossed The Time Traveler's  Wife by Audrey Niffenegger with aspects of Fallen by Lauren Kate, I imagine that the end result would come close to When The World Was Flat. I enjoyed both of those books, so its not a bad thing.

By the second half of the book I was quite enjoying it, and the story had really kicked in and I no longer felt like this was a book I should have passed over and given to my daughter, in fact I thought I should give it to her to read too and we could both share our thoughts on it. However, things then started to get confusing. Throwing in Albert Einsteins theories was good, but then there were aspects that stretched a little far, and I found myself being puzzled by the goings on and struggling to keep up with which character was where and who was who. This then made me change my mind with sharing it with my daughter, even though she reads a lot of YA I don't think she would have been able to keep up with the more complexity of the last few chapters.

I was on track to give this book a 4 star. The characters were mostly likable and realistic, and the style of writing was fluid and descriptive. Just towards the end I felt it went a little too far and it would have been nice a 4 star if I could have kept up and not found myself puzzled by it.

Links

http://www.goodreads.com/book/show/15767908-when-the-world-was-flat

http://www.ingridjonach.com/

Purchase Links

When the World Was Flat (and We Were in Love) (Strange Chemistry) - Amazon UK

http://www.amazon.com/When-World-Flat-were-love/dp/1908844582/ref=sr_1_1?ie=UTF8&qid=1374227728&sr=8-1&keywords=when+the+world+was+flat

http://www.barnesandnoble.com/w/when-the-world-was-flat-ingrid-jonach/1113784408?ean=9781908844583