Sonny Reviews- Clockwise

Clockwise by Elle Strauss

Publication Date: November 21, 2011

Publishers: ESB Publishing

Source: Author (Thanks!)

Rating: 5/5

Goodreads / Amazon

Goodreads Synopsis

A teenage time traveler accidentally takes her secret crush back in time. Awkward. 

Boy watching with her best friend would be enough excitement for fifteen year old Casey Donovan. She doesn't even mind life at the bottom of the Cambridge High social ladder, if only she didn’t have this other much bigger problem. Unscheduled trips to the nineteenth century! 

When Casey gets talked into going to the Fall Dance, the unthinkable happens--she accidentally takes Nate Mackenzie, the cutest boy in the school, back in time. 

Protocol pressures her to tell their 1860 hosts that he is her brother and when Casey finds she has a handsome, wealthy (and unwanted) suitor, something changes in Nate. Are those romantic sparks or is it just ‘brotherly’ protectiveness? 

When they return to the present things go back to the way they were before: Casey at the bottom of the social totem pole and Nate perched on the very the top. Except this time her heart is broken. Plus, her best friend is mad, her parents are split up, and her little brother gets escorted home by the police. The only thing that could make life worse is if, by some strange twist of fate, she took Nate back to the past again. 

Which of course, she does.

My Thoughts

Casey is a normal 16 year old girl. Oh, except for the fact that she occasionally travels back in time to the 1800’s. No big deal; until she brings her biggest crush Nate along for the ride. Multiple times.

Oh, Clockwise. How I wish I could go back in time just to read you over and over again. Clockwise was a quick-paced, fun book. I literally could not put it down. I even stayed up way too late and faced sleep deprivation. The concept of this book is totally new to me. At first, I thought it might be like the movie “The Time Traveler’s Wife”. But I was pleasantly surprised to find otherwise. There does turn out to be maybe a reason for Casey’s travels, of sorts. And there is also a fantastic surprise at the end that had tears in my eyes.

Casey herself seems like the normal teenage outcast. I love it when books have a main character that is completely normal in every way, except for one thing that keeps them standing out from the rest. Casey’s one stand out thing was time travel. And she always goes back in time to the same area that she lives in now, just in the 1800’s. It seems she has some sort of information to learn. Which she does, in more than one way!

Nate seems like a totally jerk. At first. He eventually began to grow on me. And of course, he was totally freaked out about the whole time travel fiasco he is going through with Casey. And rightfully so; but it is just so heartbreaking to see their chemistry in the 1800’s and then to go back to their different high school worlds after they come back home. It made me want to scream! And then they go back again and again, and you just can’t help but have a heavy heart for the two of them. You can definitely tell they care so deeply for one another, but it is difficult to get over life’s little hurtles. And I am so glad that they finally do! And their romance is extremely adorable. It was just “We were made for one another. Let’s get together.” It was a slow romance, one that snuck up on them.

In short, Clockwise was a fantastic, new look into the life of an extraordinary teenage girl. I was left thinking about this book for days afterward. A definite must read for YA romance seekers.

Favorite Character: Casey

Least Favorite: Mr. Turner

Quote: pg.2 “Everyone has to live with something. For instance, my hair is the unmanageable kind of curly, the color of burnt toast. Imagine, waking up every morning looking like the lion king, or have to spend a disproportionate amount of your allowance on hair products that don’t deliver.”

Amazing!