GIVEAWAY and REVIEW: The Photo Traveler by Arthur J. Gonzalez

Gavin’s only escape is in taking and creating images. His camera is his refuge from the unending torture and isolation of daily life in his  “family.”

Until he learns by accident that he isn’t alone in the world after all. His father’s parents are still alive and living in Washington DC.

When he takes the plunge and travels 3,000 miles to find his grandparents, he learns that they—and he—are part of something much bigger, and more dangerous, than he could ever have imagined. Something that has always put his family at risk and that will now threaten his own life, while forever changing it.

He learns that he is one of the last descendants of a small group of Photo Travelers—people who can travel through time and space through images. But his initial excitement turns to fear, when he soon discovers that he and his grandparents are being pursued by the fierce remnants of a radical European Photo Traveler cult, the Peace Hunters. What Gavin has, they want!

His adventure will take him to past eras, like The Great Depression and the Salem Witch Trials. Gavin will have to discover who he really is and must make choices that spell the difference between life and death for himself, for the relatives he now knows and loves, and for the girl he will come to love.

However, I did enjoy it very much.

This book was so twisty I swear, if you just start it and don’t keep going, you have no idea what this book is about.  There is one twist at the end that leads up to the second book which just made me sit up and say what the heck just happened!

Some of the things the characters did seemed out of place – for instance, in certain circumstances Gavin et. al, were very naïve and childish, while others they were very mature.  I prefer them to be mature, but I think this inconsistency evened out when I take the book as a whole because the mistake Gavin made near the end was very grown up.  That’s all I can say, because that’s a major spoiler.

I also had a bit of trouble with the early time traveling, the Salem Witch trials, for instance. I don’t get how you can go back in time when there’s no photos.  I get how the author explained it, I just had trouble buying that reasoning.

But the science aside, I enjoyed the plot twists and this is a very fun book for teenagers, I especially think boys would like it because it’s not too romantic, although there is some of that going on, and of course, it’s got a male protagonist.