Twisted by Danielle Rollins Full Review

Twisted by Danielle Rollins is my least favorite book I've read over quarantine. Maybe I'm just more critical after beginning to write reviews, but this book was not good. Generously, I'd give it a 4/10. If you don't understand the basics of the theory of time travel, haven't read books about time travel before or aren't a natural reader that has a high comprehension level, this book is going to be absolute gibberish to you. As someone with all three of these, the book was still epically confusing.

I don't like starting off negatively, so let me try to summon up something good. Maybe it's the backstory. I haven't read the first book in a while, but it was much better than this one. Even with the understanding of how they got to where they are, the beginning is very confusing. Please, please do not make the mistake of reading this book without reading the first one. It will be awful. The first book was better in some ways because it had concise explanations without going on and on. That didn't happen here. The few explanations required background knowledge and even a little research.

I don't like talking about what went wrong, but it was a mess. I wish I could offer solutions, or things to do differently, but if the worldbuilding is bad, I can't fix that. Specifically, the why of many things isn't explained. We don't know why Dorothy refuses to be with Ash, or why Mac decides to bribe and exploit the Black Cirkus, or why Roman left Ash. Or, why Roman lies to Dorothy. There's holes upon holes. I want so badly for this to be good, and if there was a major renovation, it could be. Possibly, if there were many less time jumps, it would be easier to discern the motives and the setting. However, the book just isn't as good as it could be.

Overall, this book is not worth your time. If you've already read Stolen Time, and you're here looking to find out if you should read Twisted, it is my recommendation that you don't.