Customer Reviews

Tempus Fugit

5 star:		(3)
4 star:		(1)
3 star:		(1)
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1 star:		(0)

 

 

This is a wonderful book, don't be put off by the price, it's worth it. The story covers a little more than a decade 1956 to 1969, Ginny and Ellen meet in high school and fall in love a big taboo in those days, Ginny has an identical twin Laurie who is evil as can be who breaks them up by getting Ginny sent to prison. The following years consist of Ginny getting out of prison and trying to put her life together, and Ellen spends all the time she can between her studies to become a lawyer and prove Ginny innocent. How they overcome the intervening years and hopefully find each other again is a beautiful story, you yearn for them to finally put everything behind them, buy this book you won't be sorry.

I loved this book!
The story is wonderfully told in first person narative by Ellen, a character that one totally falls in love with. Her convoluted love affair with Ginny is told over a period of thirteen years and thier trials and tribulations are told against the backdrop of the late 1950s and throughout the 1960s. This era is beutifully evoked and brought back a lot of great memories.
This is definately one of the best books to come to light in 2008. Well worth the price. (At 400 pages, it's like getting two books for the price of one.)

Tempus Fugit covers five decades in the lives of Ellen Druette and Ginny Swenson. They meet and fall in love when they are both cheerleaders at the same high school and just discovering what sexuality is about. Their roles as members of the privileged clique and their relationship come to a crashing halt when Laurie Swenson, Ginny's "evil twin," uses Ginny's identification to break a law and Ginny takes the fall for her. Ellen learns a hard lesson in knowing who your friends really are when rumors about her and Ginny begin to circulate. While Ginny serves a prison term that stretches on for years, Ellen attends college and law school, determined to prove that Ginny was falsely convicted. She continues her efforts even after Ginny is released from prison and Ellen hopes to resume the relationship, but Ginny can't settle down after being confined. They spend years drifting in and out of each other's lives, always connected, but never committed to each other since neither one has the confidence or courage to say the words the other one needs to hear. As they move from the 1950's, through the turbulent 60's, other relationships come and go as Ginny tries to find herself and Ellen continues to work to build her career and prove Ginny's innocence. Maybe they want to be more to each other than just passing friends, but there are many obstacles to overcome and no guarantee that they'll be able to accomplish that.

Mavis Applewater's fans know that she's not afraid to write a book that has some length to it. Applewater can carry a story through many episodes and intricate character developments. At the end of Tempus Fugit the reader will know all of the characters and their motivations extremely well. Some of the scenes seem redundant and material could have been edited out without compromising the story; however, everything fits together and it's pleasant reading, so leaving in those episodes allows the reader to become more engrossed in what is going on. What is missing is the amount of sex scenes that normally pepper Applewater's work. There are those scenes, but, instead of being a major part of the book, the story has to carry itself without the titillation she usually offers. This makes for a stronger book and more interesting story. The characters aren't always jumping into bed every time a page turns, but have to interact in a way that is more realistic and makes them more dimensional.

Good book , but definite not d best of miss Applewater. In my humble opinion, I think this romance had all the ingredients to be a great love story: the innocence of young love, first love, first heartache, evil twin, Rock and Roll,etc....however, the events between Ellen and Genie just keeps repeating themselves over, and over, and over and over again It got to the point that I almost hoped Ellen could really find someone that could be fully and totally devoted to her. Too many details on other characters that did not contributed anything significant to the story. Just my two cents.

This book has so many facets I can't count them. It's a lesson in pop culture, Political history of the cold war years, social commentary of the post war era and most of all a love story that not only endures but grows in spite of adversity and time. I highly reccommend this book to anyone who lived through these time and those who need to know how their elders wound up the way they did.