Customer Reviews

Backtracked

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BacktrackedI just finished Backtracked. It's a whale of a tale. While reading it, I sometimes missed Becky Cohen (the main character in another work by Pedro de Alcantara), because I related more to her than I did to Latrella, despite his being Italian (like me), and having traveled to 1918, the year of my Father's birth, and through historical pockets that my ancestral family would have recognized. Backtracked is a bit dark but utterly captivating. I especially enjoyed the way the history came to life, and the way de Alcantara made the reader feel present. Some of the subway history made me remember my early travels on some of those subways that no longer exist or no longer exist in the same way. All in all, the book is amazingly imaginative and beautifully written. It ends brilliantly. This is a book aimed at young adults that this very old adult enjoyed enormously.

This book is supposed to be for the teen set, but I am way beyond that and thoroughly enjoyed it. Not only is the story engaging and entertaining but the details in the historical time periods are perfect. This book screams major motion picture!

It's hard to resist the charms and momentum of Backtracked, a story that hurtles along like a speeding train. Tommy Latrella's travels through various eras of New York City using the subway system as a time-travel portal bring the history of New York alive in an exciting and imaginative way. Backtracked is guaranteed fun for the whole family. Can't wait to see this story on the big screen!

A great read for any age. As a lifelong NY subway rider I was happily surprised to read subway lore and history I never knew. And great history education for kids too!

Backtracked: is fast paced, it's got true New York subway grit, graffiti, mafiosi goons,time travel- what else could a teenager want?

Backtracked is a fast paced, genre-bending story combining contemporary/realistic fiction, fantasy, and historical adventure. Tommy Latrella is a kid with a chip on his shoulder thanks to the shadow cast by his heroic, deceased older brother. He's got something to prove, and prove it he does, as he's slammed back to New York City at the beginning of the 20th century when the subways were being built by recently arrived immigrants. Time, space, and history for Tommy will all be connected by the tunnels under NYC. Next stop is among the homeless and the Mob during the Great Depression and then into boot camp in the middle of WWII. Tommy encounters memorable, funny and touching people from all walks of life (and time), and help and guidance come from unexpected quarters. This is a wonderful read with compelling characters, fascinating historical detail and plenty of conflict. Tommy finds his way in a complicated universe, both challenged and supported by those who have gone before him, recently, as well as in the distant past.

Like many of you, I imagine, I opened this book for the first time just after running along a platform to catch a subway train. This was not deliberate, or in anyway influenced by the book's cover. I was simply late for an engagement; one of many bad habits. Thus began my version of "getting to know Latrella."

Students of karma, transformation... in short, of life, will applaud this book's injection of big and strange ideas into the milieu of teen literature, and readers of teen literature will appreciate that too. As other commentators have already said, the term teen literature doesn't actually cover it; this story is somehow much bigger. But younger readers seem clearly to be the initial target, and the author is known in the genre.

At the end of the book Latrella's story (like all stories) seems to be not quite over, or rather, "a completion is a beginning;" let's see. Are we being asked to search for the Latrella in ourselves? The personal possibilities of this book are endless. There is definitely a movie in here, and ambitious directors would have a field day: here we have vignettes of distinct époques strung together, whereas one might also see each period as one in the same event, through varying sets of filters.

The honest treatment of sensitive subjects -- 9-11, father-son relationship, and the grim reality behind early 20th century life in the USA -- is to be commended. 9-11 in particular is dealt with from two very different and valid points of view, and the transformation of Latrella is clearly in one sense a linking of these two seemingly contradictory positions, contempt and admiration, into one.

The existence of worm-holes, time portals and other such "vortices of a strange nature" is slightly glossed over, but this isn't science fiction, and we can forgive the author who, for the narrative's sake, clearly doesn't want to get bogged down in quantum physics; then again, an alternative would have been to not mention any mechanism at all, leaving it as an exercise for the reader. This, along with the unusual approach to 5 card draw, is my only reservation.

The progression of Latrella is clearly marked; there is coherent structure to his journey. His introspections are useful; the potential for confusion when traversing 9 decades is considerable, to say the least.

After reading this book, you still won't know what Ivan Osokin ended up doing, and neither will you know exactly what you'll be doing in a year's time, but in the strange brew that is the flowing, tumbling and growing world, you'll have one more angle from which to see part of "the big picture" and that's got to be a step in the right direction, whatever your final destination.

File this one under: to be continued.

Once I began "Backtracked", I could not put the book down. This is a carefully researched novel with richly drawn charachters. There is a compelling human story which unfolds within panoramic settings of New York City's dynamic and dramatic history. I highly recommend this book for readers of all ages.