pg13 Reader Reviews: Review 574: The Emancipation of Veronica McAllister

Friday, April 25, 2025

Review 574: The Emancipation of Veronica McAllister

The Emancipation of Veronica McAllister by Shawn Inmon
My rating: 3 of 5 stars

This is the 5th book in the series: Middle Falls Time Travel.

While this was a very quick read, I didn’t like this book as much as the others in the series. The storyline was okay, it was the writing style. None of them are excellent in the craft of writing, but they are plot driven and the questions and premise make these books interesting.

For this book the writing style was bugging me. One example is the pointing out at this time there wasn’t certain technology or way of doing things today. It happened a few times and was clunky and pulled me out of the story. (like reminding us cell phones didn’t exist.)

For this book we have a woman POV for the first time in the series. Veronica’s character was near the end of the previous book, taking her life as she was dying of cancer. This taking of one’s own life is what resets the character’s life, and goes back to a pivotal point. For Veronica who was 80 or so she reverted back to a teenager in the last few months of high school before graduation. The next day she meets her husband to be, at least in the first life.

Veronica ends up having several lives, each restarting at the same point and the story repeats some of those first moments for most of those restarts. Yeah, that gets repetitive too. Veronica ends up killing herself during each life as she isn’t fulfilled and wants to do it again, until she finally gets it right.

What the author choses to fill in these lives is always an interesting choice as well, and maybe didn’t make the best decisions. There were moments that seemed to make no sense why it was included and other moments that were didn’t get fully explored.

Yet, there are still glimpses of philosophical questions that these books bring up. Some that are explored in the series such as: What would you do different if you had a chance to do it again? What would you do the same? Ultimately, what is your best life?

I will read the next book, since I have it and these are short books. Then I will consider about continuing the series or not.

Other Middle Falls Time Travel Series books: