{"id":193,"date":"2024-08-28T14:14:00","date_gmt":"2024-08-28T14:14:00","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/bookloves.com\/?p=193"},"modified":"2024-08-28T14:14:00","modified_gmt":"2024-08-28T14:14:00","slug":"book-review-lizard-larson-and-the-time-keeper","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/bookloves.com\/?p=193","title":{"rendered":"Book Review: Lizard Larson and the Time Keeper"},"content":{"rendered":"
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Lizard Larson and the Time Keeper<\/em><\/strong><\/p>\n

by Gary Natoli<\/p>\n

Genre:<\/strong> Young Adult \/ Sci-Fi & Fantasy<\/p>\n

ISBN: <\/strong>9798350944761<\/p>\n

Print Length:<\/strong> 382 pages<\/p>\n<\/div>\n

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<\/span>Buy from Amazon<\/span>\n <\/div>\n

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<\/span>Buy from Bookshop<\/span>\n <\/div>\n

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Reviewed by Andrea Marks-Joseph<\/a><\/em><\/p>\n

The thrilling tale of a time-jumping teenager racing to rescue her parents<\/strong><\/h2>\n

Lizard Larson and the Time Keeper<\/em> is an action-packed mystery following a teenager who is taken out of school by her parents one afternoon and, just a few hours later, finds herself lost in an underworld of adults from the future. Fourteen-year-old Lizard (government name Elizabeth, but she finds the common nickname Liz \u201ctoo unimpressive, too plain.\u201d<\/em><\/strong>) learns she can stop time\u2014at the exact moment her parents mysteriously disappear and secret agents from the future begin to hunt her down.\u00a0<\/p>\n

Lizard Larson and the Time Keeper<\/em> is a stressful read in the most delicious, enthralling way; you\u2019re always on the edge of your seat. The sticky situation that Lizard is in keeps getting more tangled, and we can\u2019t be sure if anyone is telling her the truth. Who can she trust? Who is lying to her face? Where are her parents? Is she gonna be okay?\u00a0<\/p>\n

And we grow to care so much! We feel for Lizard because she really comes across as a typical teen. At only fourteen, she\u2019s in an awkward \u201cI\u2019m not like other girls\u201d phase, still figuring herself out, while she craves the comfort of long school days spent messing up experiments in class with her best friend. Author Gary Natoli has written something tender and fragile and true in the in-between moments of Lizard navigating this science-fiction mess. We see her as she is, a fourteen-year-old forced to shake off the all-black-everything armor of her teendom and left alone in the wide world not knowing who to trust.<\/p>\n

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As a reader, I felt protective over her. I felt like I was thrown into this desperate and dramatic whirlwind alongside Lizard. She really woke up one day, went to school, and \u00a0 then just never went home. Along the way, in this mystery that keeps revealing more of itself, Lizard lost her parents in an explosion, discovered that she can stop time, learned that her physicist parents\u2019 work created a machine to time-travel. She is even kidnapped and experimented on by part-cyborg people and befriends someone who later loses their limb for a second time. When she escapes with the help of a rebel soldier, she learns more about the terrifying organization hunting her down: \u201cHarm me? You\u2019ve got to be kidding. I think they want to kill me.\u201d \u201cThey want you for much worse.\u201d<\/em><\/strong> She\u2019s fourteen! It\u2019s a lot for one girl to deal with!\u00a0<\/p>\n

Somehow, despite the stress and worry on behalf of Lizard, this book is pleasant to read. It\u2019s way more exciting than it is scary or upsetting, and as more information is revealed to Lizard, suspicions are either dismissed or validated. Every time someone I doubted earlier in the book lies to her, it cleverly comes to light as a trick or a clue along the journey.\u00a0<\/p>\n

Readers who love mysteries will have a field day with this one. So much is happening, and Lizard only knows (or perhaps, in her highly stressful situation, only has capacity to think about the very most urgent matter) to second-guess about half of them. The reader either picks up on much more than she does, or we\u2019re dragged around the corner holding our breath alongside her while the enemy secret agents leave the building. I could not think of a more perfect encapsulation of the word thrilling than this story.\u00a0<\/p>\n

Natoli writes the time-stopping with a beautiful sense of fascination as Lizard is navigating what it is, and what it means: \u201cEverything in sight\u2014cars, buses, pedestrians, dogs on leashes, a plane some distance on the horizon, and a cascade of raindrops\u2014were all suspended. There must be some boundary to this frozen bubble of time, but currently, it was visibly limitless.\u201d<\/em><\/strong><\/p>\n

So much unravels for Lizard in this book, and so many new truths answer questions she never knew to ask. But we still have so much to discover! The character of the Time Keeper and the entire concept of The Corporation of Time is fascinating, but we\u2019ve just had a taste of what it all means. There\u2019s much more of its complex, intriguing, one-of-a-kind clockwork body to reveal in a follow-up book. \u201cSomewhere in that mystery,\u201d <\/em><\/strong>Lizard tells the reader, \u201cmight be the solution to unraveling this paradox she was wrapped in.\u201d <\/em><\/strong>That alone is more than enough to pull me in for more of this story. The final line of this book\u2014not a spoiler, just an excellent intro to the idea of a sequel\u2014encapsulates all that I\u2019m expecting from reading more of Lizard\u2019s adventures: \u201cOnce through the door, her life would take on unimaginable possibilities, and perhaps a new time would begin.\u201d \u00a0<\/em><\/strong><\/p>\n

Content warnings are necessary for the grief and confusion of suddenly losing your parents.Also, in a research lab, Lizard is drugged by the food she\u2019s given and suffers through tortuous medical experimentation, including electrocution.<\/p>\n

Lizard Larson and the Time Keeper <\/em>reminded me of the Dead Boy Detectives <\/em>series, with its quirky intricate magic and charming-but-prickly teenagers who bounce off the page and into my heart almost immediately. It\u2019s a great match for fans of Nathan Burgoine\u2019s young adult teleportation novel Exit Plans for Teenage Freaks<\/em>. The times when the bureau is surveilling and experimenting on Lizard to extract and replicate whatever part of her can stop time reminded me of the Prime Video series Gen V<\/em>. Lizard Larson and the Time Keeper <\/em>matches its \u201cdon\u2019t trust the adults, we have to do this ourselves\u201d energy.<\/p>\n

This book would be great for fans of mysteries, time-travel, and teenage protagonists who have to figure out how to save the world and <\/em>manage being a teenager with a confusing crush at the same time. Lizard Larson and the Time Keeper <\/em>is action-packed and unforgettable. I\u2019d highly recommend it.<\/p>\n

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<\/span>Buy from Amazon<\/span>\n <\/div>\n

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<\/span>Buy from Bookshop<\/span>\n <\/div>\n

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Thank you for reading Andrea Marks-Joseph\u2019s book review of Lizard Larson and the Time Keeper <\/em>by Gary Natoli! If you liked what you read, please spend some more time with us at the links below.<\/p>\n

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The post Book Review: Lizard Larson and the Time Keeper<\/a> appeared first on Independent Book Review<\/a>.<\/p>","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Lizard Larson and the Time Keeper by Gary Natoli Genre: Young Adult \/ Sci-Fi & Fantasy ISBN: 9798350944761 Print Length: 382 pages Buy from Amazon Buy from Bookshop Reviewed by Andrea Marks-Joseph The thrilling tale of a time-jumping teenager racing to rescue her parents Lizard Larson and the Time Keeper is an action-packed mystery following […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":0,"featured_media":194,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[4],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-193","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-bookreviews"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/bookloves.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/193"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/bookloves.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/bookloves.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/bookloves.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=193"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/bookloves.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/193\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/bookloves.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/media\/194"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/bookloves.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=193"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/bookloves.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=193"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/bookloves.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=193"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}