Certain books touch a something inside you that makes you love them. This is probably the most cliché opening to any review I have ever written, but I have no other way to describe The Time Keeper by Mitch Alborn.
The book follows the story of the first man to count time. For this counting of time, he was punished. God made him listen to everyone complaining about time for thousands of years. Until now.
God has sent him back to earth so that the timekeeper can save himself by saving two other people. A young teenager, who has her heart broken by an asshole and now wants less time. And an old man, who is dying from cancer and wants more time.
Both of them don’t realize that you can’t control time – which is the problem the timekeeper also had.
Every single person over 18 has to read this book – men have to read it to realize what they did to at least one girl when they were teenagers and girls have to read it to realize that you are and were not alone. The frustration, the pain and misunderstanding of rejection when being a teenager has never been so accurately portrayed than in this book. Granted, we won’t all go to the limits this girl goes to at the end of the story, but the feelings have always been there.
The story is broken up in small chapters that alternate between the timekeeper, teenager and old man. This works well for people with a short attention spam, but annoyed me.
I liked getting the point of view of all characters, but I think chapters could be longer than five pages.
However, this is just moaning about a small issue in a wonderful book. Alborn knows how to convincingly write a man from the Babylonian area, a spoiled, insecure teenager in 2000-something and a rich, ungrateful old man from the same area. This is no small feat for an author and the fact that Alborn gives all of these characters a distinct voice in just 200 pages is amazing. From the beginning of each chapter, we know exactly in whose mind we are.
I found all the characters slightly annoying – yes even the teenage girl, because lets be real: teenage girls are slightly annoying– but Alborn still makes them relatable enough that it doesn’t matter if you don’t obsess over time.
You live with them, you feel their pain and the ending is unlike what you expected. This is what a great book should do.