I liked the concept of this book but I ended up feeling really confused and did not finish it. It felt like it had a lot of potential but it just wasn't for me .

I recently found out the author of this book was 14, which in of itself it amazing. It had a brilliant premise. but unfortunately the book needs some heavy editing. I had to DNF this around 20% in as I just couldn't get into the story line. There were parts that went into too much depth, and the parts that needed it, needed explaining, unfortunately left us as the readers a little flummoxed. 

I think with some editing this could be a really brilliantly written story, the ideas are all there, just as a whole it left a lot to be desired.

this was a really unique concept, I loved the idea of fighting your future self. I enjoyed the characters and the plot of the book. I look forward to whatever is next for the author.

DNF. There’s almost too much story going on here, and things got a little confusing. Actually, things got confusing quite frequently. I didn’t really connect with the characters, and think this should be marketed clearer as a mid-grade novel, because I was expecting an older group of characters. I tried to finish this to be able to recommend it for my 11 year old, but it just wasn’t happening.

I didn't know going into this book that the author was so young. This is an impressive accomplishment for his age and if he continue to work on his craft he might become quite something! For this book, it wasn't a big thing for me. I find it okay, but even if writing a book so young is great, the age of the author is felt reading it and I can't say that this is a very good book in term of adult literacy for say. Young name worth noticing, but maybe wait for his next one!

Rating <em>Broken Shards of Time</em> by Nyah Nichol was probably one of the most difficult decisions, largely due to the author's age. Your average 14 year old definitely couldn't write a book like this. In fact, there aren't many kids of that age range who can. And it's fair to say that Nyah Nichol deserves some credit for having put this all together. That said, this book needs some <em>serious</em> editing. And I don't mean this in terms of anything grammatical as that was fine. To put it simply, Nichol has great plot ideas but does not know how to write the actual story.

<b>A Brilliant Idea</b>

This book needed a content editor. And someone to tell Nichol what pieces really needed a rewrite or to be removed entirely. In general, I can actually say that the overall premise was rather brilliant. A time travel story in which a young girl is pulled into the future in order to help save the world from the evil that she will eventually become is a <em>fantastic</em> idea for a novel. It's so good, in fact, that I find it thoroughly dejecting that this book is an example of how not to tell a story. 

I wish that I didn't have to say so. 

<b>Piecing a Story Together</b>

Nichol clearly knew what story she was planning to tell. You can see that fact in nearly every scene of the novel. In fact, she knew so much what story she was telling that she subjected her readers to a lot of excess nonsense. What I mean by this is that this book was <em>mostly</em> told in exposition. There were <em>massive</em> chunks of this book where all we are getting is background information in one form or another. A good portion of the time, a lot of this information was unnecessary. Even worse, some of it was unnecessary in the fact that it gave away almost <em>everything</em> about the novel's plot. 

There was literally no guessing to be had regarding the events that were coming. You knew them all from the start. And if you didn't know right away, it was revealed very shortly. Nothing in this novel surprised me. 

You know that old adage about writing, <em>show</em>, <em>don't</em> <em>tell</em>?

Yeah, that was a problem here. Nichol really didn't know how to show her readers this story. It was so bad that it honestly kind of felt as though she were forcing all this information into my brain like someone trying to force something down my throat. I was <em>drowning</em> in the excess of unnecessary explanation and summary. It was so distracting that you barely feel as though you are getting to know the characters. Instead, you feel like you're listening to a long-winded ramble of someone trying to explain a movie they watched and somehow they end up adding all this fluff of pointlessness that you spent more time listening to the description than it would have taken to watch the actual movie.  

<b>Speaking of Time</b>

It was all over the place. And the funny thing about this is that Nichol's novel is a <em>time travel</em> story. Yet it was clear from the very moment time travel entered the plot that she had no idea how to pace out her story. If you're not paying very close attention, you get confused <em>very</em> easily. Even if you are paying attention, you're probably going to get confused. It came as <em>no</em> surprise to me that many of the reviews for this book feature a comment or two about how the time travel was confusing.

Nichol really didn't know how to bring that piece to life. A large part of the reason behind this is the fact that she just jumped around with time willy-nilly. Instead of the different perspectives of time actually coming in at reasonable moments, she just throws the time jumps in there. She does it even when it doesn't make sense for the story, throwing us into a situation where we experience a start to mid-point telling from one character and then jump all the way back to a start to mid-point for another character entirely. 

Not to mention the fact that Nichol was in such a rush to tell the story she wanted that the beginning of both these characters' 'starts' is basically just jumping from one moment to the next with little continuity other than the fact that whatever came next could be assumed to have come after what was written before. But these giant jumps ahead in time that were <em>not</em> attributed to time travel itself were ridiculous. 

<b>A First Draft</b>

<em>Broken Shards of Time</em> is what I would call a first draft that has only been through the copy-editing portion of the publication process. This book still needs <em>major</em> amounts of structural and developmental editing. I honestly feel like it really didn't get <em>any </em>of that. And while this is a comment to Nichol's writing itself, it's more of a comment to whoever was supposed to be doing the structural and developmental editing. 

Nichol is young and therefore it makes sense that her story would lack a lot of writing elements that you expect of a more experienced writer. That said, I expect an editor to be more experienced as well. And I'd expect them to have spent a <em>lot</em> more time working with Nichol to really flesh out the narrative structure and ideal plot outline of the book. There needed to be a lot of edits to remove the issues with exposition. Many cuts needed to be made and a lot of the story needed to be reorganized. 

This is good as a draft. But it needs a lot more work if it's going to live up to the potential of its premise. 

<em>I was provided a free copy of this book via NetGalley in exchange for an honest review.</em>

This review will be live on the Reader Fox blog on October 1, 2020.

While I did enjoy this book, it just wasn't the type of book I usually enjoy. Sci-fi is definitely not my preferred genre, I find it confusing most of the time. This book just multiplied that confusion because of its multiple timelines and perspective switches. It looks to me like thats been a common issue among other reviewers, but this book was still enjoyable regardless.

This book focused on four different characters, Wren, Cass, Tolli, and Alex. Every one of them got their own perspective, and went over the events from the same timeline from their perspective. Its already easy to be confused by what character is the narrator at any given time, and that was worsened because every character had a very similar voice. I do have to admit that I was mentally checked out of this book at times, so some of that is on me.

Like I said earlier, the plot in this is fairly confusing. I did enjoy it though, and I felt like the ending set up nicely for an eventual sequel. I still have questions about the time traveling, and how what they did affects the present, but they aren't huge questions. I would recommend this book if you're a sci-fi lover, or a time travel fanatic, but it just wasn't right for me.

I received a free copy in exchange for an honest review

I can't believe this book was written by a high schooler! I started writing at 13 but have never written something like this! 
We follow four characters: Wren Derecho, Alex Donahue, Cassandra Viola and Trevor Tolli. This was probably my favorite part of the book, the characters and their dynamics. I had some difficulties with the chapters from the past as sometimes I felt like I was reading multiple books at a time. However, without these chapters the characters wouldn't have made as much sense so we definitely needed them for the story.
I loved the fact that there was little to no romance in the story and the focus was mainly on the friendship and trust between the characters. Funnily enough, the main character was my least favorite, however, she really seemed to value her family and friends and that was something to admire.
I admit that I was a bit confused at times because 1) I don"t read a lot of science-fiction and 2) I'm not a native English speaker but it wasn't so bad that I had to stop reading because I had no idea what was going on.
Overall, this was a nice story and if there were to be a sequel I would definitely read it! (I hope there is a sequel considering the ending haha)

This book is about Wren Derecho, a girl who will never be the same after a terrible car accident that ended up killing her parents and she was the only survivor of it. Then her uncle tells her that they found an orb that caused the accident. Now she has an obssesion with the orb and time travel making her think she could change what already happened, until a weird thing happen to her and it will change it all.

This was a very good sci-fi book well paced, and its main plot is time travel, I enjoyed it, I didn't loved it at all because it was a little confusing, sometimes I had to go back and read the chapter again because I ended up confused. I loved that sometimes this book tell us something that had happened in the past that we don't know but in the next chapter, it tell us that story.

I finished this book and I have some questions because I didn't get that final chapter and the epilogue, How did the orb end up in Alex hands in Wren present?. If this is gonna have a second part I really need that to be explained and very carefully.

so that was all about my review and Thanks Netgalley for giving me this book.

Thank you to Common Dear Press publishers and #NetGalley for letting me have an ARC of #BrokenShardsOfTime by Nyah Nicol.

Wren Derecho is involved in a tragic accident that kills both of her parents. She is brutally injured and only experimental treatments with robotic engineering will save her life. She goes to live in a research facility with her brilliant Uncle who is researching time travel. 
Some years later Wren is visited by agents from the future who tell her that she has become the post powerful person on the planet. She is dangerous and needs to be stopped. There is no-one on earth powerful enough to stop her but herself. Wren must travel into the future to stop herself from destroying everything.
I really liked the sound of this book from the moment I read the synopsis. It is set in our world but in the future and as such has a dystopian/futuristic feel. 
The novel is aimed at teenagers/YA and I think it is pitched just right. The characters are very likeable and the plot is well written and easy to follow. This is definitely the kind of book that I would have picked and enjoyed as a teenager.
4 stars.

An enjoyable read. A YA time travel novel that could have been great but somewhere loses its way. It's a real shame as the story has real promise. Characters are good especially the female protagonist.

I could not connect enough with the main character of this book for me to want to continue reading after the first chapter. It threw me off that he was 10 years old but the voice sounded more young adult-ish than middle grade. The voice was over the top descriptive which makes me want to connect with it, but the descriptions ended up being too vague in the prologue to end up intriguing me any further.

The writing style is great and because of that I read this book. This book is for teenagers not for an adult. Anyway I don't like the time travel drama at all but even teenagers will find this book dull.

Broken Shards of Time by Nyah Nichol had solid ideas and plot but struggled to execute them. One of the biggest problems with the book is pacing. The books has a continuously fast pace, even in the moments that were meant to be more reflective and focus on character growth. This was especially apparent in the beginning when the reader is given very little introduction of the life of the main character Wren or her personality before she is abruptly transformed into a cyborg and aliens are introduced. Also, I was never fully a fan of the author's writing style and often found the dialogue to be stilted and unnatural. It was difficult to root for Wren because the reader doesn't really get to know her. With all that being said, the plot was unique enough to compel me to finish the book.

DNF. I didn't realize this was middle-grade. I didn't like the writing style. If felt choppy. I also very rarely enjoy time-travel books but sometimes I find one I really like so I took a chance on Broken Shards of Time. It just wasn't for me. I hope others find it and enjoy it.

Thank you netgalley for providing this ARC in exchange for an honest review.
This is an interesting YA sci fi novel about a young girl who loses her parents in a storm. She is then given robotic parts and spends her time trying to rebuild a time machine that stole her parents. Up to that point I was intrigued in what direction the story would take. We have a physically, strong heroine  with a fragile mental state who holds incredible power. That power can either be her strength or her downfall.
While I enjoyed the various characters we meet along the way, I found it difficult to follow the constant change of view. 

Overall, it is a promising sci-fi novel with action filled adventure but the story flow needs work.

I am not usually a fan of science fiction, but I still found "Broken Shards of Time" an enjoyable read. The story revolves around Wren. who has lost her parents in a mysterious accident and as she copes with her loss, she is forced to question what really happened. A broken time machine, a mysterious blue orb and unknown forces make for an action packed adventure.
I found Wren's character surprisingly complex, with her robotic exterior contradicting her vulnerable, emotional nature. Unfortunately, the writing style wasn't as captivating as I had hoped, however the story was easy enough to follow. The idea of time travel, although not the most original in itself, was still intriguing for me and when combined with the very real personal relationships and connections between the characters, it made for a unique story.

This was OK. It has a certain charm, but it is also flawed. The story can be a little confusing at times, although the premise is interesting. I liked some of the characters as well. But I'm probably too old for this book. The essence of it is good, but has some rough edges. 

Thanks very much for the ARC for review!!

The writing style from this author made the story easy to read. I liked that time travel in this story was easily described as ice cream as this made it a simple term to understand how time travel in this book worked as many a times time travelling stories can be hard to grasp but this was the complete opposite. I loved that their was different views from each of the main characters that each told more to the story as it progressed to give the audience an understanding of what was happening as some characters saw more than others which made a lot sense. The only major downfall for me was that Part 1 and Part 5 were written very well, however i found Parts 2,3 and 4 to be very confusing at times due to the constant back and forth. I think it would have been so much easier if these parts for the characters were written in order of their timeline.

Seriously, I couldn't put this book down!  I found the story captivating with its quick pace and characters, especially Wren.  The character development and growth is engaging as the author has written in a layered approach keeping the reader page turning just to see how the story ends.  Considering this is the author's first book it is impressive to see the intricacy that she employees.  If you like a great story, read this one...you won't be disappointed!