★★★☆☆
“…when you get yourself a little perspective and see the universe and all of time laid out before you like this, you tend to realize there’s so much more to being you than you thought.”
Nathan Van Coops, The Day After Never
The Day After Never is book three in Nathan Van Coops’ time-traveling series. I loved In Times Like These, the first book in the series and, while I didn’t like The Chronothon (Book 2) quite as much, its Amazing Race-style plot and pacing held my attention.
I can’t say the same about The Day After Never. It was a slog to get through – it truly took me years to finish it. I picked it up in 2018, and read the first fifty pages but kept choosing other books instead of picking it back up. Thinking it may have been timing, I restarted from the beginning a few months ago and it still wasn’t as strong as the first two.
Like previous books, each chapter opens with words of wisdom from Dr. Harold Quickly, who invented time travel. It also features Mym from the first two books, though she is relegated to the background for most of the book.
“I’m trying to get back in touch with the surviving version of myself…”
Nathan Van Coops, The Day After Never
The best parts of the story are when Ben Travers struggles against himself. The book had an interesting premise and it comes back around in the end, but it was longer than it needed to be. It got bogged down with too many unnecessary and confusing elements.
I’m on the fence as to whether I will read The Warp Clock, book 4 of the series. The ending of Day After Never seems to wrap up the series, so it doesn’t leave the reader with a strong need to see what happens next.
I think I may need to try one of Van Coops’ other books before deciding to invest more time in the Benjamin Travers series. I’m glad I was introduced to Van Coops, though. He opened the world of independent authors to me – and, for that, I will forever be grateful.
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