I'm so bitterly disappointed with In Another Time, I'm not sure where to even start. From the book blurb, it's a historical fiction with a little bit of romance and mystery thrown in, which seems interesting enough. But it did nothing for me from pretty much the first page, and it did not get better no matter how much I hung in there and kept reading.
A large part of the problem is that there is so much telling and no showing, which is the biggest sin of writing. For example, Hanna is a violinist who plays with passion and fire. How do we the reader know this? Well, we are explicitly told this, many times. Hanna and Max "make love", which happens more than a dozen times in the book, and we know each time because it says that they "make love." We are told that the two main characters really like each other, but are never shown more than a skin-deep physical attraction.
The sentences are so simple, the construction is plain, and when you add them up to paragraphs and chapters, they all come across as basic and uninteresting. The characters are flat, with no self-awareness or growth, and lacking any sort of depth that made them feel alive or real. The dialog is so stilted and cliche. The relationship between Max and Hanna is awkward and a little creepy, with Max badgering Hanna until she relents and goes out with him. There is no spark in the writing, no creativity in the plot, nothing that took a hold of me and surprised me, not even a little.
The unfolding of the plot wasn't interesting. It meandered along, with events happening when it was convenient to move the plot along and not because it made sense based on what was going on. Even the mystery that the book blurb alludes to is tackled with so little thought and originality, with no explanation other than some generic words thrown in.
In the end, I didn't develop any kind of connection with this story. If I had to use one word to describe my impression of how it was written, it would be: Lazy. That is the honest truth.
Readaroo Rating: 1 star
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