Book Review TIME'S MOUTH Edan Lepucki

Thank you to the author, publishers, and as always NetGalley, for an advance digital copy of Time's Mouth. All opinions are mine.


Time's Mouth is a time travelling story, but this element is more than that term implies. More on that in a moment. This story is also story about mothers and daughters linked into the past and future, and it is this maternal connection that powers the time travel in this story. 

The women and girls in Time's Mouth are tattooed by trauma at one another's hands, in the form of abuse and neglect and abandonment and fierce, indomitable love, the kind that leaves scars. The magic these women possess exists in themselves in a series of moments in time. But their power is limited in a way that can empower the women against other, only not all of them know it. Wonder what would happen if the family suddenly takes back the cards from the one whose always been helding them all?

I didn't invest too much in the main character's personality or personal stakes, but I was very interested in the way the time travel skill worked in the book. It could be read as a metaphor for the emotions and relations between the women, or more literally, as a manifestation of interpersonal power playing out across generations. Either way, it was an entertaining read and I'm glad I was influenced to try this one!

The audiobook was a little hard to follow, but the narrator gave a good reading. I think I'll read this one again, with my eyes this time!

Creative, original time travel device, women trying to surmount the weight of intergenerational trauma, great coming of age story, this one's a keeper!

Rating: 🕒🕞🕓🕕 / 5 time travel devices 
Recommend? Definitely!
Finished: July 23 2023 
Format: Advance Digital Copy, NetGalley 
Read this if you like:
🌠 Time travel 
🙋‍♀️ Coming of age
🤰🏾 Stories about mothers 
👨‍👩‍👧‍👦Stories about intergenerational trauma 

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