book review- parallel by elle o’roark

3.75/fantasy romance/time travel/soulmates

I've already taken an hour to try and sort through my thoughts, but I've given up and hoping that writing this will help me decide how I feel.

I like the premise. Give me anything involving soulmates/destined lovers, and I will eat that up like I'm starving. But time travel??? It's hit or miss for me. Time travel-a-la-Outlander tends to be more my jam, but time travel in the way it's presented here just typically ends up leaving me confused (think Time Traveler's Wife). And this book left me confused for most of it.

As with most of the reviews that I read, I needed more. This is more of an intro novella than a first book in a series, and I feel like I can't really form an opinion on it because I don't know enough. The cliffhanger at the end was aggravating instead of captivating, and just left me feeling empty.

I gave it a 3.75 because I really did enjoy the writing, the characters, and the storyline. It just wasn't enough, and felt like the plot came to a screeching halt as soon as it actually got going. I love the idea, and it has a lot of potential, and this easily could have been a 4+ star book in another 100 pages. It's a quick, easy read, but I can't shake the feeling of "this could have been so much better".