Fun, and with a surprising amount of actual scientific ideas packed into this kids book. I love Jeanette's writing and it's fascinating to see how she pitches it to a younger audience. It also clips along at a wonderfully fast pace. The only issue I had was that the rules of this world are a little hard to determine, which made some of the latter section harder to become invested in. ( )

I generally love Jeanette Winterson, but this one neither persuaded nor compelled. I am not convinced that even a child audience would get into it, it felt a little british boilerplate book for kids. Disappointing, but not terrible. ( )

Our world could sure use Silver, Gabriel, and TANGLEWRECK.

Though the plot eventually wears down with only the two tiny Good Guys agains the many Monster Evils, readers may still enjoy and be challenged by the exploration of our concepts of Time.

Younger readers will not benefit from the instances of torture, death, and murder.

"Grown-ups were always worrying about money, she knew that,
but what did you need if your could eat and sit in from of the fire and read books?" ( )

Ambitious Time/Space YA Fantasy
Review of the Bloomsbury US hardcover edition (2006) ( )

This is a middle grade sci-fi/fantasy novel about a girl who is suspected of possessing a clock that can control time. Two different antagonists are after her, one who uses magic and another who uses science.

I thought the ideas present in this book were very imaginative. I was somewhat frustrated that a lot of the scientific concepts shown didn't really make sense. There was some basic logic behind them, but it felt like the kind of thing that was still kind of vague and not fully explained or explainable, though I think that was largely to do with the fact that the book is middle grade and that the intended audience would be too young to notice holes in the logic or even really want to read full explanations if they were given.

All that said, I thought the writing in this book was very good. I don't really like middle grade that much (I'm just working my way through a couple of middle grade novels I found that I had never gotten around to reading when I was in the proper age bracket) but there were still a few points throughout the book when I found myself impressed by a piece of prose. I probably would have really been in love with this book when I was younger, and I am definitely interested in reading this author's adult work now. ( )