I wasn’t able to get into this book. I tried multiple times but couldn’t connect. This is why I originally did not give any feedback.

I had high hopes for this book. It sounded great from the synopsis., and although it started out fine it really didn't do anything for me. The more I read, the less I liked it. I was more interested in just getting through it, than caring about what actually happened in it.

Love love loved this book!
the story is engaging and you want to find out what happens next.
Not particularly well edited, but good enough to keep on reading.

This book started out really strong, it really did, but then sort of petered out a bit towards the end. I hate saying that, because y’all know I love a good dystopian tale. This one wasn’t bad by any means, but it wasn’t quite great.

First, let’s talk about our characters. Our main character is El, short for Elisha, a young nurse living in the “Divisons.” Think sort of like the Districts in The Hunger Games, only instead of there being one large Capitol, there are smaller settlements called Villages where the upper class, or Elites, live. It means the common folk get to interact a bit more with the Elites, which helps a bit. El is a very kind person who sincerely wants to help everyone, so when the gas attack hits and a large portion of the population basically become zombie-like, she is ready to try and break some of their strict societal rules to try and help as many people as possible.

This is all well and good, and the first half of this book sort of works with this idea. Between El’s family, her friend Kai, and the people in her neighborhood, she is able to help as many of the sick people as possible. They also set up a barter system so as not to be too dependent on the government Rations Centers. The story gets a bit weird towards the middle and the end when somehow El becomes a candidate for president, trying to fight President Torrent and her corrupt, power-hungry government. It was never completely believable that El made a good candidate. She seemed much more suited for a behind-the-scenes sort of character. The other thing that made the second half drag some much is that Torrent is a very one dimensional villain. There’s really not much there except for her hunger for power and enjoying having more than the others do.

There’s also a bit of a love triangle, sort of, between El, Kai, and El’s friend Pratt, who is not part of their community at first, but comes in to help them. He’s a bit of a renegade. I didn’t feel a strong tie between El and either one of her suitors, so it just ended up weird.

I did really like the story world a lot, but that is partially because I like dystopian settings. Their system worked, for what it was. It was unfair, but no one suffered unduly unless they stepped out of line or questioned anything. Having the Elites so close by made a lot of the conflict seem more real because the people of the Divisions could see exactly what they were up against.

I did enjoy this story, but I thought there were some parts that could have been a bit stronger. The epilogue at the end does leave room for a sequel, but I don’t see one listed on GoodReads yet. It would be interesting to see what happens in another book, since a lot of things were pretty much tied up at the end of this one.

When it comes to books, I usually stick to Contemporary Romance novels or Thrillers. But every now and then I like to throw in a Dystopian. I’m always fascinated and impressed by the authors’ imagination and the creation of new and dystopian worlds. This fascination also applied to It’s Our Time by Diane Krauss who took the reader into the year 2044 in which a new US government had full control over every aspect of their citizens’ lives: work, food, the media, money, status.
Krauss’ idea of this new world and life in the US was great. The story is intriguing and has a lot of potential. Potential she didn’t exploit to the fullest, unfortunately.

The story had one too many time jumps which made it difficult to understand. There were a few times throughout the story during which I was totally lost: is it still 2044 or is the story in 2045 or even 2050 already? The only indication of time frames were giving throughout the chapters: “Five months ago”, The next two years”, “It had been over a year” but it still didn’t make any sense.
The time jumps also created a rather fast-paced story. This is certainly not bad but it was not working here. I think that creating a new dystopian world takes time. The reader needs to be familiarized with the new events, the people, the world etc. Rushing into new events in each new chapter was too much and too rushed.
It was honestly rather difficult to figure out the book’s end-game. I was simply missing explanations. The movement the blurb talks about was just there suddenly. There was no movement whatsoever in one chapter and in the next the characters talk about a movement all of a sudden. A movement I haven’t heard of before in the story. Major things like that can’t just happen without being at least slightly addressed.

The same happened or not happened with the characters. Obviously the book introduced quite a few characters in the beginning which were explained to the readers. It was rather about certain characters that were introduced somewhere in the middle of the story and weren’t explained properly. Sometimes characters just appeared and it seemed like the reader should know who that person is. Pratt was a mix of both actually. El met him in one of the early chapters. He then disappeared and only appeared again months later, which was actually only a couple chapters later in the book. Other characters, like Kai, seemed to already know him, so Kai must have met Pratt somewhere during the “months later” part. But then a few paragraphs after Pratt’s sudden appearance, it seemed that Kai didn’t know him after all and only met him that day. The author was all over the place with the characters and their relations to one another. Just like El’s “crush” toward Kai and Pratt. It was just too confusing.

The story was told from El’s POV which made sense the most, since she was the main character of the story. However, there were a couple chapters incl. the epilogue which were suddenly written in third-person and I had no idea why. But it turned out that the chapters, in fact, were written in first person because El described the happenings even though she wasn’t present to witness it. And this didn’t even more make sense.

As I mentioned in the beginning of this review, It’s Our Time has great potential to be an amazing dystopian but the overall confusion, the plot holes, the explanations or lack thereof, and the inconclusiveness of the story prevented it from happening.

The epilogue foreshadowed a potential second book but I am not convinced that this is a good idea or even the best move. I think it’s best to revise It’s Our Time completely to get rid of the issues mentioned and then convert It’s Our Time into a duet or even a trilogy.

Well worth the read. With great, believable dialogue and enough back story for the main characters to give them depth,

DNF at 53%

I know this seems like a really harsh reaction considering the high rating this book has, and maybe I was the problem and not the book (it's been known to happen), but I'm not convinced that was the case in this particular instance.

The plot, as far as I got, was interesting and the characters were okay. What made this book unbearable for me to read was the writing.

It's been years since I've stumbled upon a book so badly written. It had no continuity. No flow. Reading this felt like reading a collection of descriptive, short sentences one after the other.

I'm an amateur wanna be writer myself, and sometimes I do these character sheets were I lay out all of my character's traits, personality and basic info. Reading this book felt like that, like reading a lay out instead of a fleshed out story. Like: This happened, and then this happened and then this happened.

The writing was extremely fragmented and choppy, which completely shot the pacing to hell. And half the time the reactions the characters had made no sense whatsoever. Also, there was this part where suddenly we abandon El's POV to a third person omnipotent narrator during the scene her parents go up to the roof during the gassing. Why? Why completely change narrators out of nowhere? It wasn't necessary. All that information could have been relayed to her by her father after the event.

Also, this is a perfect example of a book that tells instead of showing. As I said, it's just a series of kinda connected, descriptive sentences one after the other. Which means I had no clue how much time passed between one event and the next. Take the reporter showing up, for example. El and Kai rescue her and her son. What feels like the next morning (and, I'm almost sure, actually is the very next morning) El steals Kai's Elite ID and goes into the Village. When she goes back to the apartment's basement (like 4 hours later), the reporter is topeless (which I'm not sure means completely nude or in a bra) with Kai and El's coworker and she thinks something like "this lady has spent a lot of time alone with Kai down here so I'm sure they've kissed by now and maybe even done other things". And I was like WHAAAAAAT? Girl, you just left a few hours ago! WTF are you even talking about?

So, yeah. It was a bunch of things like that one that made it impossible for me to muster enough interest to finish this book. If it was re-written, though, I would for sure give it another chance, cause the potential is definitely there.

This novel felt like young adult dystopian fiction. I have to admit that I rarely read something young adulty because I don't like the tone, but here I could finish the book and it's good. I think that the vision of not so far future was quite creepy and though not much realistic, very interesting to read.

My main complaint is one dimensional villain though I think she has potential in eventual future novels.

Characters wasn't great, but wasn't boring either but unfortunately I couldn't connet with them too much.

Well, I think this is good work, but maybe for a younger audience.

It's Our Time portrays a bleak future. It's even worse once you realize it's plausible. The bookstores are saturated with dystopian fiction, yet I still like most of the stories despite many similarities. This one is girl power save the world, and that's always inspiring. I enjoyed the plot. It's entertaining and a fast read. The characters are likeable and flawed and strong. The story is good to immerse yourself in for a bit of adventure. Thanks to NetGalley for an arc in exchange for an honest review.

Fans of dystopian story lines will appreciate It's Our Time, a new novel from author Diane Krauss. While the plot line is nowhere near original (don't all dystopian novels seem to follow the same plot?) and the writing isn't quite on par with other popular dystopian novels, Krauss still provides an engaging read for those who crave dystopian story lines with female leads. I appreciated that Krauss kept this read fairly clean in the area of language and sexuality making it acceptable for a variety of ages and backgrounds. If you're looking to lose yourself in a dystopian world where you can cheer on the female "savior" who doesn't really understand why she's so special, then you'll thoroughly enjoy this novel.

Note: I received a copy of this book from the publisher through NetGalley in exchange for this honest review.

I was totally immersed in this dystopian world.

I've read a good deal of dystopian fiction.. My favorites are when the author builds a world that seems as if it could realistically happen, which is the case in this book. I loved the world building, I could see it in my mind, and I believe something similar could really occur.

I loved the characters, and felt most were true to how people would react. I loved the story and The writing style.

The only reason I didn't give this 5 stars was that I didn't fully buy into the ending. I don't want to explain why, since I don't want to spoil anything for those who haven't read it.