2 out of 4 stars
Share This Review
Jennifer Hero is no ordinary woman. She’s the captain of a task force fighting a war against the Syndos, humans genetically altered who want to destroy the Naturals. In order to bring peace between Syndos and Naturals, Jennifer sends her team back in time 300 years to plant a virus among the Syndos that will genetically stop their violent tendencies. But Jennifer doesn’t join her team to make sure the mission is successfully accomplished. Instead, she travels back in time to 2015 because she’s still grieving the loss of the love of her life, the man responsible for making time travel possible. When she gets to 2015, she finds herself stuck on a radioactive island called Moruroa for months until she is saved by a marine biologist and his team. But once she is rescued, Jennifer finds herself struggling to blend into the current time period and keeping her intelligence and abilities a secret, which could put her team’s mission in jeopardy.
Escape, the first book in the 30th Century trilogy, is a story full of twists, turns and mystery. But one of the elements in the story I loved the most is the amount of science Mark Levin is able to incorporate into the story. From marine biology to anthropology, he covers almost every realm of science in this book possible. As someone who enjoyed taking science courses in school, I loved it because I felt like I was learning more about the different subjects in science along with Jennifer. I also found as a reader that it made this fictional story that much more credible because the author included actual science in a fictional story.
I also enjoyed reading this book because there were a lot of twists and turns in the plot I didn’t see coming. One example that comes to mind for me is close to the end of the book. Without giving anything in the story away, I loved discovering that piece of information about Jennifer. I found that it really helped piece everything together and explained how Jennifer was easily able to take over another person’s life. I also found that it added more to the storyline, making me as a reader want to continue turning the pages to find out what happened next.
Another element in Escape I really enjoyed is the representation of bisexuality in the story. I think bisexuality is a topic that needs to be represented more heavily in literature and appreciated the way Levin brought it into the story. However, I also agree with readers who think that there were too many erotic scenes in the book. At first, I didn’t mind the erotic scenes because Jennifer explained her sexuality very well and I thought they brought an interesting element into the story. But at the same time, I also feel like it takes a little bit away from the actual storyline and made the book unnecessarily longer.
My two biggest criticisms with this book are that I don’t understand why Jennifer abandoned her team in another time and I sometimes felt like there was too much going on in the story. I don’t understand why Jennifer left her team because their mission sounded really important to me and I believe she should’ve seen it through before going into another time. I get that she was grieving the love of her life and was tired of being a part of this fight. But she should’ve completed the mission first before the events that followed in the book so that she could make sure the mission was a success. I also felt at times like there was just too much going on in the story. I felt like every time Jennifer would go out exploring, something would happen to her and everyone who was with her. While those moments made for a fascinating read, I sometimes wish they hadn’t been included in the story.
I also noticed several editing errors and spelling mistakes throughout the book. The mistake I noticed the most when reading this book was when referring to black holes, they were sometimes called “back holes”. For all of these reasons, I have no choice but to give this book 2 out of 4 stars.
I loved reading Escape immensely, but certain elements in the story bothered me so much that I couldn’t give this book a higher rating. Nonetheless, I highly recommend this book to those who love science and are open minded about sexuality.
******
Escape
View: on Bookshelves | on Amazon
Like rainydaysc64's review? Post a comment saying so!
