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OK, I’m a sucker for time-travel books. So I saw this one on a Kindle deal and thought I’d give it a try. This series is a spinoff from another one about scientists and historians in somewhat modern-day England who use time travel to study the past. While some people, such as these researchers, are allowed to travel in time, the general public are not (that lesson was learned the hard way). That means time travel must be monitored and policed; the Time Police do the job.
This book introduces three teens/young adults who join the Time Police. They get some training and then have some opportunities to start using what they’ve learned.
Jane is tired of living with her controlling grandmother; Luke is a rich kid whose father is forcing him to work because of bad behavior; Matthew is the son of parents who are some of the aforementioned historians. Each seems like a terrible recruit. But perhaps together, they can use their unique talents and backgrounds to stop some time crime.
Doing Time is really easy reading; for a while, the simplicity of the writing seemed like it was targeted more at middle-grade readers. But the content (profanity and sexual references) is definitely not for that age range. It’s also supposed to be humorous, and I sometimes did find it so, but it is really simplistic, goofy humor. It just didn’t work for me. It has high ratings on Goodreads, so the style does work for a lot of readers, however. The book just wasn’t my thing, so I won’t read any more in the series.
Rated: Moderate. Profanity includes 2 uses of strong language, around 50 instances of moderate profanity, about 35 uses of mild language, 40 instances of the name of Deity in vain, and about 40 uses of British (bl-) profanity. There are also a number of times characters say “fire truck” instead of the f-word or start saying it but don’t finish. Sexual content includes a lot of references to young adults having casual sex but no details. Violence is somewhat frequent but not too gory.
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