Extra Life

September 28, 2015
Mystery author Nikitas (The Long Division) makes his YA debut with a complex adventure in which a teen bends time and space with increasingly messy results. All Russ wants to do is put together a short film that will land him a coveted internship with a local movie studio. When Russ's day takes a bad turn, including his missing the film submission deadline and getting suspended, he leaps at the chance to fix it all, in the form of a mysterious smartphone app that sends him back in time 12 hours. After his attempt to fix matters only makes them worse, he travels back in time again. As each leap generates more copies of Russ existing in the same timeframe, he realizes that something sinister is occurring and that not every copy of him will make it out alive. Readers may need a flowchart to keep track of the multiple versions of characters involved, but this is a clever, fast-paced, and thought-provoking tale, if one that leans a little too heavily on tongue-in-cheek humor and pop-culture awareness. Ages 13âup. Agent: Yishai Seidman, Dunow, Carlson & Lerner.

November 1, 2015

Gr 7 Up-Horace "Russ" Vale has a less than stellar school record. He tries to change his ways and finds an interest in filmmaking. With his friends, Russ sets out to make a film of his own. But when nothing goes according to plan, Russ has the opportunity to repeat the day through a mobile application on his cellular phone. The app warps him back in time, and the teen attempts to make things right for himself. Russ's ability to leap back in time creates parallel universes that pit him against himself as he works desperately to fix the future of his past actions. With each leap and the help of his friends and father, the teen protagonist must combat multiple doppelgangers roaming in the same space and finds that changing the past has exponential and sometime tragic consequences. The mechanics of the time travel are a bit complicated and get more so as each time warp unfolds. Fast-paced, action-packed, and sometimes violent, this novel provides another variation on the time-tested time travel trope. VERDICT A science fiction novel for die-hard fans of the genre.-Vivian Ho, Port Washington Public Library, NY

Copyright 2015 School Library Journal, LLC Used with permission.

October 1, 2015
Grades 8-11 At a low moment in 16-year-old Russ Vale's life, he receives a cryptic text message, seemingly from a future version of himself, offering the chance to reset his life. Taking a leap of faith, he clicks the embedded link and finds himself reliving the same day over and over. But every reset results in dangerous anomalies, and, eventually, he must decide whether to keep making the leap or stay put and deal. Five sections, each a different version of the same day, and each chapter a different hour of the day, are the frame for paradoxes and mind-bending twists aplenty. Discussions of the science of time travel and theories of parallel worlds make this a potential choice as a companion text for a physics class, but popular-culture references date the material and suggest confusion about the book's actual target audience. The plot feels rushed in a few spots, but the masculine voice rings true, and escalating action and suspense will grip readers until the end. A fine first foray into YA lit by veteran thriller-author Nikitas.(Reprinted with permission of Booklist, copyright 2015, American Library Association.)