YA Book Review: Invictus (ARC) by Ryan Graudin

Title: Invictus

Author: Ryan Graudin

Genre: Young Adult Time Travel

Publisher: Little Brown Books for Young Readers

Pub Date: September 26, 2017

Pages: 464

My Copy: ARC that I got at Book Expo America

Book Summary:

Time flies when you're plundering history.

Farway Gaius McCarthy was born outside of time. The son of a time-traveling Recorder from 2354 AD and a gladiator living in Rome in 95 AD, Far's birth defies the laws of nature. Exploring history himself is all he's ever wanted, and after failing his final time-traveling exam, Far takes a position commanding a ship with a crew of his friends as part of a black market operation to steal valuables from the past. 

But during a heist on the sinking Titanic, Far meets a mysterious girl who always seems to be one step ahead of him. Armed with knowledge that will bring Far's very existence into question, she will lead Far and his team on a race through time to discover a frightening truth: History is not as steady as it seems.

Book Review:

One of the most exciting books that I’ve read this year. I definitely thought that this was one of the best books that I’ve read about time travel. The characters and Farway Gaius is one character you will never forget. Farway Gaius is someone who has challenges thrown his way that he never expected and then has to deal with more surprises than most people ever have to.

We find out that Farway is the son of a very famous traveler. Yet he was born on a time ship, so he was born out of time which has created something unexpected, him. So of course he grows up and is expected to pass his final exam and he has friends and what looks like a great future, but things go bad during his final exam. Of course, someone who looks like Marie Antoinette sees him and flirts with him. This is something you should never do. You should never ever let someone of historical importance interact with you or notice. If this had happened during a real mission, it could have had serious implications and cause possibly a paradox, Farway gets really chewed out. He can’t even appeal. The decision is out of his hands. He feels like someone has sabotaged his final exam. He is really upset that this has happened and let everyone down.

Then something strange happens and he gets an invitation to captain his own ship, but he has to retrieve certain items from different times, basically steal them and bring them to the person who recruited him for this mission. They get paid and get to travel, but to be careful and try not to cause too much damage to the time stream. There are consequences if you mess with time in certain ways. This is to be understood.

As Farway and his crew on the Invictus are traveling through time, you get to see how well this group works together. Everybody on the crew works at a certain task and that is how the group gets to be so good and efficient at stealing things and acting their part. So of course there’s an incident that happens on the Titanic. They are trying to steal a very valuable book and of course run into a girl. This young woman has stolen the book that they are looking for and of course the girl ends up on the Invictus with them. Farway recognizes her as the girl who was posing as Marie Antoinette and is furious when he sees her. This makes him very angry and he wants to know who she is and rightly so. Not to mention why she caused him to fail his final exam.

Her name is Empra and that’s all she’s telling them. Not to mention she has the book and threatens to destroy it. What ensues is some hijinks and major problems with the time stream not to mention we have inter dimensional time travelers. We learn after a while because of how Farway was born, his mother and him inadvertently cause what is known as a Fade which destroys time and it’s growing faster and bigger in the damage we learn. She also comes from a different dimension. She is what you would call Faway’s counter self, meaning same mother, different dimension. Because of the way he was born, this caused little wholes and other things. Her job is to stop it. The only way she thought to do that was to cause him to fail and yet nothing is ever simple we find out. We find out that there a lot of other people in other dimensions thinking that killing Far would be the solution.

Craziness ensues in a way that you don’t expect. We get to see different locations and times through out history. Sometimes we get to places for us that haven’t happened yet. Somehow this group of characters has to stop the Fade and Time itself from disappearing. Learning things about one’s past really is interesting. Also they learn that if they fix things, they could disappear and history will rewrite itself meaning they could very well fade from existence. Not a good situation to find your self in.

Everything becomes crazier and crazier as this book unfolds. I just love all the crazy and inventive things that happen and how they try not to interact with other people who they might know at different points. Plus the real meaning of sacrifice becomes very clear. The way this book ended really was one that I didn’t really see coming but should have, because it was the only thing that made sense in a way. 

This was one of the most fun books that I’ve read in a long time.  Definitely a book that is going to be on my top ten this year.

Rating:

4.5 Hearts