Time Between Us - Tamara Ireland Stone

Time Between Us by Tamara Ireland Stone
Publisher: Hyperion
Publication Date: October 9, 2012
Source/Format: BEA 2012 || ARC
[I received this book from the publisher. This in no way affects the opinions expressed in my review.]

Anna and Bennett were never supposed to meet. After all, he's from 2012, and she's from 1995. But when Bennett's ability to travel through space and time allows him to be a part of Anna's world, they fall in love.

Sweet. Whenever I think about Time Between Us, this is instinctively the first descriptive word that comes to mind. It was such a lovely little novel, especially as Anna and Bennett meet, form a friendship and then fall in love. While the time travel aspect lends an air of light science fiction, this book mostly came across as a story of a boy with this mysterious ability and the girl he fell in love with who loved him back.

It took me a while to get warmed up to the novel, but once I did, I ended up really enjoying it. The best part of this novel, to me, is the romance. I absolutely adored the relationship that developed between these two. Though the circumstances under which they first meet are a little strange, I quickly got over my weird feelings and embraced the friendship and love. There's just something beautiful and magical about falling in love with someone, and the author does a clever job of making what would have been an ordinary teenage relationship into something that's a little bit different (and not just because of the time travel!). There's a lot of push and pull, a lot of "go for it" versus "I can't, I shouldn't, I won't", and that tension made reading the moments between them unbearable at some points.

The time traveling simply became a part of their reality. There would, in other novels, be more of an explanation as to why Bennett possesses this ability. In this case, though it would have been interesting to find out why he can do it, it was not actually necessary. The book was primarily focused on his relationship with Anna, and how they would manage to overcome the barrier that this time travel presented to them.

Time Between Us comes across as more contemporary, than science fiction - and that's a good thing. The beautiful complexity that characterizes any budding relationship comes across quite clearly, all while being out of the ordinary because of what Bennett can do. The author did a wonderful job making Anna and Bennett easy to fall in love with, and the end product is this book that's sweet, enjoyable and very unique.