It took me a little while to get into this book. It has a very distinctive, unusual, fast-paced, breathless, bordering on ludicrous, sort of style, and just figuring out what’s going on can be a weighty task — but that’s okay, because the main characters can’t figure out what’s going on either. (Time travel always complicates things!) Once you sit back to enjoy the ride, and take it as the romp it seemingly is intended to be, it’s great fun. Don’t worry about the fact that the “strict Victorian etiquette” upon which several plot points hinge somehow doesn’t seem to apply to the main characters (e.g., the book makes a big deal about how single men and women cannot spend unchaperoned time together, and then the leading man and woman proceed to do so, several times, and somehow no one notices). Definitely don’t try to trace the timeline, through several time traveling episodes, changes, changes back, and the “theory” of time slippage. Just have fun! You may need to take a break between chapters, though, to let your head stop spinning.

This is one of my favorite books, so I brought it with for reading material when I was an exchange student in Austria. When I was sick for a few days, this book was like my “comfort food”. It always makes me laugh!