The Darkest Loop
James Fant
SciFi/Time Travel
Dallas Anderson is stuck in a time loop that repeats Labor Day 2001 to September 11, 2001. He thinks he must prevent the terrorist attacks to break the loop. But each loop challenges that theory, igniting a fiery romance between him and his best friend’s sister and exposing the dark truth behind Déjà vu.
Uncaged Review: Dallas’s world is turned upside down when on September 4, 2001, his best friend, Kevin, is killed in an accident. He begins to grieve and connect with members of Kevin’s family, but then something odd happens. After watching the tragic events on September 11, he wakes up and finds himself back in September 3, 2001. He feels like he has an opportunity to do things differently and save Kevin’s life. Then he begins to think that he should set his goal a little higher. Can he stop the events of 9/11?
I initially chose this book because the idea of being stuck in a time loop seemed very interesting to me. I loved “Groundhog Day” and “Life After Life” by Kate Atkinson. This book started out in a way that I did not expect. I didn’t relate to the main character – or even like the main character to be honest. He came across as kind of ne’er do well who didn’t treat women very well. It turns out that this is the absolute perfect setup for some awesome character growth. The character development in this book was truly amazing. This book also had an awesome pace and plot. There were constant twists and turns. I would expect a book about time loops to have some repetitiveness, but there was surprisingly little of that. I was so engaged in this book that I almost read it in one sitting (that is rare enough for me as it is, but this is not really a very short book.) This is honestly one of the best thrillers I can ever recall having read. The interactions between characters, the humor, the surprises, and even the explanation for the time loop was very well done. You can tell that the author did a lot of research for this book and took care in making things accurate and understandable.
Even though the editing wasn’t perfect, and there were some real oddities in the wording sometimes, I enjoyed this book a lot. I was impressed with how my opinion and interest just kept improving as I read more and more. (To be totally honest, I was thinking as I began reading that I was going to have to drag myself through the book. Never has my opinion turned around so completely.) What is also great about this book is that it is very clean. Where the author could have chosen to include coarse language and explicit sex scenes, he did not. It worked so well for this book. There is only one scene that is pretty disturbing (spoilers: torture, frightening and extreme violence). Otherwise, I would even recommend this book to some younger readers.
I would definitely be interested in reading more from this author. This book is just great entertainment, pure and simple. Reviewed by Emily
4 1/2 Stars
