After Eden - Helen Douglas

After Eden - Helen Douglas
ISBN - 9781408828694
Publisher - Bloomsbury Childrens
Release date - November 7th 2013
Find - Goodreads/Book Depository/AmazonUK/AmazonUS

'When mysterious new boy Ryan Westland shows up at her school Eden Anfield is intrigued. On the face of it, he's a typical American teenager. So how come he doesn't recognize pizza and hasn't heard of Hitler? What puzzles Eden most, however, is the interest he's taking in her.

As Eden falls in love with Ryan, she stumbles across a book in Ryan's bedroom - a biography of her best friend - written fifty years in the future. Unravelling Ryan's secret, she discovers he has one unbelievably important purpose . . . and she might just have destroyed his only chance of success.' - Goodreads

After Eden is the impressive tale of an ordinary girl who may just well end up saving the world. everything in Eden's life is normal now, especially after the tragedy of losing both her parents in a car accident. She lives with her aunt, works hard at school and whilst not hugely popular she has a great group of friends, including her best friend Connor who is harboring an unrequited crush on her.Everything changes the day Ryan Westland, a new American student, arrives at their school and doesn't appear to know what pizza is or who some of the world's most significant historical figures were. From here on in Eden's life becomes a rollercoaster and what she thought she knew is turned on its head, especially after an odd reaction by Ryan's sister when first meeting her and then accidentally taking home one of Ryan's textbooks only to discover that it's actually a biography of Connor set decades into the future when such a thing shouldn't exist. Pulling all the pieces together Eden works out exactly who Ryan is and when he's from, becoming the one person that may be able to help him prevent a worldwide tragedy.

After Eden combined some of my favorite things - Cornwall, time travel and sci-fi - in a fantastic effort at creating a fairly unique story which kept me turning the pages. The characters were utterly convincing as teenagers, Eden was great with her initial innocence and confusion over Ryan and not wanting to accept that Connor was in love with her. If a time traveling teenager can see this then it has to be pretty obvious! She was a little whiny at times but what teenager isn't? It added to the authenticity of Douglas' writing as I'm pretty sure I could be very whiny on occasion when I was a teenager! Ryan was almost sweet in his ignorance of things on earth, especially not knowing what pizza was but it makes you wonder how he was ever chosen for a mission as important as the one he is currently on. He was also willing to flaunt the rules almost without a second thought by confirming her suspicions about what was going on, even though he knows that there are penalties to pay if he is found out. I found the character of the Cleaner interesting, I liked the idea of someone traveling along with them to ensure that there are no loose ends or major repercussions after they go back to their own time. Unfortunately, I guessed the identity of the cleaner far too early into the story which spoiled things a bit but that's my only niggle about the book really.

On the whole After Eden was a fantastic read, quick but interesting and I loved the mentions of astronomy, naming the constellations & planets and so on. The relationship between Eden & Ryan was intriguing too, not quite insta-love but almost, and had I gone into After Eden not knowing there was a sequel coming I don't think I would have appreciated the ending, as predictable as it was. Having said that I can't wait to get my hands on Chasing Stars and see what happens to our starstruck couple next.

Thanks to Bloomsbury, via Netgalley, for providing me with an e-arc of After Eden!