If I could turn back time

When 19-year-old Jackson Meyer discovers that he can travel through time, he's excited - but not really that excited, because he can't go back in time that far, and whatever he does in the past seems to have no bearing on the present. Since he can't use it to stop wars or even win the lottery, his new talent is really more of a parlor trick, though it's one that he keeps secret from everyone except his best friend Adam, a young genius who is determined to discover the limits of Jackson's ability through thorough experimentation. It's all fun and games until someone gets hurt: Jackson's girlfriend Holly, who ends up the floor of her dorm room with a gunshot wound. In terror, Jackson jumps futher than he ever has - to 2007, where he remains stuck until he can learn more about his ability, the man who broke into Holly's dorm with a gun, and how to get home. However, before he does that, he wants to learn how to change time and save Holly, because he doesn't want to face a future or a present without her. 

Time travel books can often be confusing, but frankly, the story here is good enough that I didn't really care if the logistics of Jackson's travels made sense, even though they actually kind of did. Rather than prescribing to a wibbly-wobbly, timey-wimey philosophy, in which the nature of time can never be fully grasped by anyone other than a Time Lord, Cross has created a world where time's secrets seem to be revealed, but only to a chosen few, which may happen to be a select group of CIA agents.

Even if I hadn't been fascinated with the way Jackson's travels unfolded, I would have liked the book anyway. Jackson is a great character - just the right mix of self-deprecating, sarcastic, and sensitive - and his friends, family, and enemies are equally well developed. There's even a bit of a love triangle, if you consider 2007 Holly and 2009 Holly to be different people, as Jackson does, and it's fantastic. There are a lot of great sequels coming out lately (such as Insurgent, Pandemonium, and Fever), but I'll be holding my breath until the next installment of this trilogy comes out!