3 out of 4 stars
Share This Review
When presented with the choice to accept imminent death or go back in time and relive her life from a pivotal moment, Anaya readily grabs the chance to go back and start again. The sci-fi novella The Watchmaker’s Doctor by G. M. T. Schuilling takes a thoughtful look at the choices we make and where they lead us. While discussing themes of agency and consequence, Schuilling explores the world of time travel and mental illness.
Anaya is a 35-year-old doctor struggling with her life choices and bipolar disorder. She is given the rare chance to change the course of her life. Her patient, Greg, gives her a unique and priceless gift: a watch that can take the wearer back to any point in her life. “The point is to leave this world with no regrets. The question you should be asking yourself is, what’s yours?” Anaya decides her moment of greatest regret came when she decided to drop out of school at age 17. She begins a journey of rediscovery, living as her younger self but with the mind of a 35-year-old.
There are many aspects about The Watchmaker’s Doctor that I loved. I applaud the author’s choice to bring light to the challenge of mental illness and the importance of proper diagnosis and treatment. The idea of time travel was also well written. Schuilling explores this concept with a nice balance. We get a glimpse of how going back in time to change a single event can alter an entire life, but we don’t get weighed down in the details and physics of time travel. I appreciated that the focus was made on the consequences our choices have, offering great wisdom for young readers and others. I loved the chance to connect with the book on a personal level as I reflected on what I would do given Anaya’s chance to go back in time. And since I am in the throes of raising teenagers, I especially enjoyed Ana’s insights as a 35-year-old teenager, “Doing as you pleased at this age, without seeking the help and advice of those qualified to give it, equaled marching into a minefield.”
What I struggled with in reading this book was wanting more. While I loved the set up of the plot, I just did not feel that it was developed enough. I understand that there are more books to follow in this series, so perhaps, this will be corrected. I also struggled with the lack of character development throughout the book. The characters had great potential, but they all felt flat and underdeveloped to me. I really wanted to like Anaya but just wasn’t given enough to feel a connection to her. We are told at the beginning of the book that Anaya is struggling with depression and her life choices, but we don’t really get anything other than a few brief flashbacks late in the book that reveal these struggles. We are introduced to Anaya’s close school friends, who have a prominent role in her decisions, but we are only given a few awkward scenes that show their interactions. Her relationship with her parents also has a dominant role, but again, there just wasn’t enough background given for me to understand and relate to any of them. Unfortunately, most of the relationships throughout the book felt contrived.
Though I loved the ideas presented in this book, the lack of plot and character development left me giving this book 3 out of 4 stars. There are very few grammatical errors in the book, and the author has a beautiful writing style with a nice cadence and flow. I would readily recommend this short book to teens and adults, and I believe a wide audience will appreciate it as it touches on so many topics. I look forward to the next installment in this series.
******
The Watchmaker’s Doctor
View: on Bookshelves | on Amazon
Like angiejack456's review? Post a comment saying so!
