Hello, everyone! Today I’m reviewing The Third Rule of Time Travel by Philip Fracassi. I’m a bit of a sucker for time travel stories. So, I couldn’t pass this one up.

Rule One: Travel can only occur to a point within your lifetime.
Rule Two: You can only travel for ninety seconds.
Rule Three: You can only observe.
The rules cannot be broken.

In this riveting science fiction novel from acclaimed author Philip Fracassi, a scientist has unlocked the mysteries of time travel. This is not the story you think you know. And the rules are only the beginning.

Scientist Beth Darlow has discovered the unimaginable. She’s built a machine that allows human consciousness to travel through time—to any point in the traveler’s lifetime—and relive moments of their life. An impossible breakthrough, but it’s not perfect: the traveler has no way to interact with the past. They can only observe.

After Beth’s husband, Colson, the co-creator of the machine, dies in a tragic car accident, Beth is left to raise Isabella—their only daughter—and continue the work they started. Mired in grief and threatened by her ruthless CEO, Beth pushes herself to the limit to prove the value of her technology.

Then the impossible happens. Simply viewing personal history should not alter the present, but with each new observation she makes, her own timeline begins to warp.

As her reality constantly shifts, Beth must solve the puzzles of her past, even if it means forsaking her future.

***Thank you to Orbit Books for providing an advanced copy of the book. My review contains my honest thoughts about my reading experience.***

This was my first time reading a book by Fracassi, but it definitely won’t be my last. I sped through The Third Rule of Time Travel in no time at all because I didn’t want to put it down. The consistent pace kept me hooked, and I always felt like I needed to read just one more chapter. I ended up staying awake until 3 AM because I had to know how it would all end. I can’t think of a higher compliment to give.

My favorite thing about The Third Rule of Time Travel was the way it conceptualized time travel. I was fascinated by the idea of traveling back through your personal timeline by sending your consciousness through a wormhole. I don’t think I’ve ever read anything quite like it, and I’m super curious about the science behind the idea. That being said, the story didn’t really deliver much in the way of science itself, which was a little disappointing since the ideas were so cool.

The plot of The Third Rule of Time Travel was a thrilling ride that kept me guessing at how things would turn out. Throughout the story, there was a growing sense of wrongness that ratcheted up in intensity as things progressed. The author did a great job of slowly crafting those underlying feelings of anxiety by tweaking progressively bigger details until the truth was too obvious to ignore. I only had one major qualm with the plot. The main character ended up being given many of the answers right before the end in an unexpected info dump. It all made sense and was well-written. I just thought it felt like a bit of cop out and put the brakes on things to make space for the ‘story time.’

As for the characters in The Third Rule of Time Travel, they were the weakest thing about the book for me. All of the supporting characters felt a bit one note, the ‘villain’ cartoonishly so. I did become attached to the main character, Beth, but I didn’t particularly care for her characterization. I enjoyed reading about her relationship with her daughter and appreciated the representation for working single moms. However, I just could not buy into her being the inventor of time travel. She rarely did any science on the page and just seemed extremely unprofessional and all over the place. I understand that she was experiencing grief and the mental strain caused by the time travel, but her character just didn’t scream brilliant scientist to me at all.

All that being said, I had a great time reading The Third Rule of Time Travel. The ideas in the story were captivating, and the author did a fantastic job of weaving the details together in a way that made the tension feel like a slowly tightening vice grip. It definitely had me in its hold despite the flaws in the characterizations. Therefore, I rate this book 4.25 out of 5 stars.

There you have it! My thoughts on The Third Rule of Time Travel by Philip Fracassi. Do you enjoy reading stories about time travel? Is this one on your TBR? Let me know down in the comments! 🙂