The Kikiloa Chronicles

by Erik D. Larson

"An engaging time-travel romp that mashes up Jung and Doctor Who to masterful effect." OUR VERDICT: ✓ GET IT — Kirkus Reviews

"Sharp prose, warm characterization, and the literary chops to make the heady ideas resonate at a human level." ⚡ Editor's Pick — BookLife Reviews by Publishers Weekly

Kikiloa, the puckish and imperfect time-surfing Mother of humanity, takes us on an award-winning kaleidoscopic adventure of hope, loneliness, and self-discovery. Reviewers agree: it's a "wildly original" novel "unlike anything else" they've read, with philosophical literary storytelling that "offers a rich and rewarding experience."

Kiki is both the 200,000-year-old Mitochondrial Eve and a freckled fourteen-year-old trickster bounding across a San Francisco park to meet her ordinary friend Hazel, who Kiki believes can make death itself pass people by. Probably.

As she flickers across a trillion universes, Kiki is determined to discover an antidote to entropy before everything meaningful is lost. And she hopes Hazel is the key.

When a cliff collapses beneath them and Kiki vanishes mid-fall, Hazel is left facing the man who attacked them, while Kiki's braided hopes unravel backward through self-delusion, all the way to her bleak first life as an outcast enslaved in a dystopian prehistoric world.

But Kiki never lets up. She laments a Hawaiian tsunami, alchemizes sniper attacks, tells quantum stories, weaves through highway pileups, goes Jungian, and bakes perfectly average cookies. And through it all, she spars with her infuriating, enigmatic mentor Paha, who believes surfing is elegy: all waves break, and fighting the end only creates suffering.

The Kikiloa Chronicles is Erik D. Larson's emotionally vast, funny, and wild literary debut carried by Kiki's unmistakable voice - from the devastating loneliness of her first life to the hard-won wisdom of friendship. Charming and self-deceiving, she wrestles with love, a force like gravity, alive at the core of a universe destined for darkness.

Circe meets Douglas Adams in the spirit of Ursula K. Le Guin. Foreword Clarion 5 out of 5, Literary Titan Gold Book Award, 2× American Fiction Awards Winner.

Read Book One of Kikiloa's trilogy with your eyes, mind, and heart wide-open.

Content Note: This story contains scenes of natural disasters with loss of life, gun violence with young teens in danger, and sexual oppression in a dystopian prehistoric setting. The scenes are not graphic, but readers sensitive to these themes may wish to know in advance. While there are teenage characters and strong adventure plotting, this is a complex, unusual, character-driven literary novel for adults and mature teen readers ready for it.

Genres: Science Fiction, Fiction, Fantasy

420 pages, Paperback

Published July 12, 2026

About the author

Author of the acclaimed, award-winning Kikiloa Chronicles, Erik D. Larson is an Illinois farm boy turned MIT rocket scientist, decorated Air Force captain, Silicon Valley entrepreneur, avid gardener, and aspiring waterman. He splits his time between Marin County and Hanalei, two versions of paradise.

He has written poetry, edited university newspapers and literary reviews, and published behavioral science research on how we really make decisions.

The Kikiloa Chronicles is his debut novel — a story born from a love for grandmothers and a lifelong fascination with time, choice, nature, and what it means to be human.

“Moving, surprising time-travel story of the fight against entropy.” ⚡ Editor’s Pick — BookLife Reviews by Publishers Weekly
“Mashes up Jung and Doctor Who to masterful effect.” OUR VERDICT: ✓ GET IT — Kirkus Reviews
“Imaginative, sincere, and bigger on the inside than it first appears.” ★★★★★, Gold Book Award — Literary Titan

Reviews

[Jenni · Rating 4 out of 5]

This book walked into the room carrying time travel, magical realism, quantum theory, prehistoric trauma, Jungian psychology, parallel universes, existential dread, and a baking tray of average cookies.

And at some point I had to sit back and ask:

Girlfriend... are we doing all of the genres today?

Because apparently the answer was yes.

At the centre of the story is Kikiloa, or Kiki, who is simultaneously Mitochondrial Eve, a fourteen-year-old girl, a time surfer, a storyteller, and possibly the hardest-working character in speculative fiction.

This poor girl is carrying the weight of humanity, existence, entropy, and about seventeen other concepts on her shoulders.

Someone get her a holiday.

Kiki's mission to find a way to stop everything meaningful from eventually disappearing is fascinating, ambitious, and undeniably unique. There are moments where the story feels genuinely magical as it leaps across timelines, universes, disasters, memories, and myths.

The imagination on display here is absolutely wild.

Like, genuinely wild.

The sort of wild where halfway through a chapter you stop and think, "I have no idea what's happening right now, but I'm impressed somebody thought of it."

Unfortunately, this is also where some of my struggles began.

Because while the ideas are huge, the story occasionally feels like it's trying to fit an entire library's worth of concepts into a single novel.

Time travel.

Entropy.

Love.

Grief.

Identity.

Evolution.

Philosophy.

Quantum weirdness.

Meanwhile my brain was sitting in the corner clutching a cup of tea and begging for a breather.

The real standout for me was Kiki herself. She's funny, frustrating, heartbreaking, determined, and wonderfully messy. Even when the story became a bit dense, her voice kept pulling me back in.

Paha was another character who constantly had me side-eyeing the page.

Sir.

Could one philosophical conversation simply be a conversation?

Or are we aiming for an existential crisis every time?

The emotional core of the story is surprisingly strong. Beneath all the science fiction, magical realism, and universe-hopping chaos is a story about loneliness, friendship, mortality, and the things people cling to when faced with losing everything.

Those moments landed.

The pacing, however, was a bit of a mixed bag for me. Some sections flew by and had me completely invested, while others felt like they were asking for a level of concentration that my post-work brain simply wasn't prepared to provide.

This is definitely one of those books that rewards patience.

Unfortunately, patience and I are sometimes only casual acquaintances.

Final Verdict

The Kikiloa Chronicles is ambitious, imaginative, heartfelt, and bursting with ideas. Erik D. Larson clearly isn't afraid to swing for the fences, and there's something admirable about a book that refuses to play it safe.

Did every idea work for me?

Not quite.

Did I occasionally feel like I needed a flowchart, a whiteboard, and perhaps a qualified physicist nearby?

Absolutely.

But Kiki's voice, the emotional depth, and the sheer creativity kept me invested even when the story threatened to disappear into its own very clever brain.

A fascinating read that didn't completely win me over, but definitely left an impression.

3 ½ stars.
A beautiful, chaotic bundle of big ideas that occasionally got lost in its own time-travelling brilliance.

[Jenni · Rating 4 out of 5]

This book walked into the room carrying time travel, magical realism, quantum theory, prehistoric trauma, Jungian psychology, parallel universes, existential dread, and a baking tray of average cookies.

And at some point I had to sit back and ask:

Girlfriend... are we doing all of the genres today?

Because apparently the answer was yes.

At the centre of the story is Kikiloa, or Kiki, who is simultaneously Mitochondrial Eve, a fourteen-year-old girl, a time surfer, a storyteller, and possibly the hardest-working character in speculative fiction.

This poor girl is carrying the weight of humanity, existence, entropy, and about seventeen other concepts on her shoulders.

Someone get her a holiday.

Kiki's mission to find a way to stop everything meaningful from eventually disappearing is fascinating, ambitious, and undeniably unique. There are moments where the story feels genuinely magical as it leaps across timelines, universes, disasters, memories, and myths.

The imagination on display here is absolutely wild.

Like, genuinely wild.

The sort of wild where halfway through a chapter you stop and think, "I have no idea what's happening right now, but I'm impressed somebody thought of it."

Unfortunately, this is also where some of my struggles began.

Because while the ideas are huge, the story occasionally feels like it's trying to fit an entire library's worth of concepts into a single novel.

Time travel.

Entropy.

Love.

Grief.

Identity.

Evolution.

Philosophy.

Quantum weirdness.

Meanwhile my brain was sitting in the corner clutching a cup of tea and begging for a breather.

The real standout for me was Kiki herself. She's funny, frustrating, heartbreaking, determined, and wonderfully messy. Even when the story became a bit dense, her voice kept pulling me back in.

Paha was another character who constantly had me side-eyeing the page.

Sir.

Could one philosophical conversation simply be a conversation?

Or are we aiming for an existential crisis every time?

The emotional core of the story is surprisingly strong. Beneath all the science fiction, magical realism, and universe-hopping chaos is a story about loneliness, friendship, mortality, and the things people cling to when faced with losing everything.

Those moments landed.

The pacing, however, was a bit of a mixed bag for me. Some sections flew by and had me completely invested, while others felt like they were asking for a level of concentration that my post-work brain simply wasn't prepared to provide.

This is definitely one of those books that rewards patience.

Unfortunately, patience and I are sometimes only casual acquaintances.

Final Verdict

The Kikiloa Chronicles is ambitious, imaginative, heartfelt, and bursting with ideas. Erik D. Larson clearly isn't afraid to swing for the fences, and there's something admirable about a book that refuses to play it safe.

Did every idea work for me?

Not quite.

Did I occasionally feel like I needed a flowchart, a whiteboard, and perhaps a qualified physicist nearby?

Absolutely.

But Kiki's voice, the emotional depth, and the sheer creativity kept me invested even when the story threatened to disappear into its own very clever brain.

A fascinating read that didn't completely win me over, but definitely left an impression.

3 ½ stars.
A beautiful, chaotic bundle of big ideas that occasionally got lost in its own time-travelling brilliance.

[Angela · Rating 3 out of 5]

3 Stars

The Kikiloa Chronicles is the first book in The Kikiloa Chronicles series by Erik D. Larson. It is a sweeping sci-fi, time travel adventure that felt a bit cosmic in its scope. Mr. Larson crafts a story that dances between science fiction, mythology, magical realism, and spiritual.
This has some Terry Pratchett and Douglas Adam vibes – pulling us into a world where time and space are fluid, yet the stakes remain high. Kiki’s quest is not just about traversing strange worlds or confronting extraordinary challenges - it’s about wrestling with the universal question of meaning in the face of impermanence.
Mr. Larson endeavoured to balance cerebral ideas with heartfelt storytelling – and for the most part he succeeded. I just wish it wasn’t so wordy and ‘saturated’ in parts, which slowed the flow and pulled me out of the story. But overall, it was a thought-provoking and wildly imaginative read. Perfect for those who love their science fiction with a philosophical edge, some heart, and a extra dollop of quirky.
Happy Reading…

[Amelia Larson · Rating 5 out of 5]

From rafting glacial ice melt flows to watching the intricate repercussions of a car crash and telling the stories of the mother of humanity’s first life, Kikiloa took me on a journey through space, time, and morality. She is a narrator unlike any other I have experienced: simultaneously confident and questioning, always everywhere at once, and wise with tens of thousands of years of life but still victim to human stupidity.

Her story takes on complicated moral subjects and standpoints as it moves through diverse and beautiful landscapes in a somewhat fragmented style. Every story she tells has dozens of offshoots (dare I say waves of meaning) and implications, and I loved exploring possibility, reality, and the end of everything alongside her.

In all the complexion of Kiki’s story, I found the simple beauty of the world and its people. I’ve read it twice, and I have no doubt that I will someday read it again.

[Mallory Peterson · Rating 5 out of 5]

As an avid reader who is not as familiar with the blend of genres featured in this book, I was pleasantly surprised to see how accessible it was. From page 1, I was gripped and fell in love with the characters and world that was built. A truly great read for all!

[Sam Ward · Rating 5 out of 5]

This book is an absolute rollercoaster through ages and places - a fast paced, deep and epic story that will suck you in from the first word and keep you hooked to the last. Just brilliant.

[Feathered Quill Book Reviews · Rating 5 out of 5]

In The Kikiloa Chronicles by Erik D. Larson, we meet our main character Kikiloa “Kiki,” who appears to simply be a fourteen-year-old girl living in San Francisco.

What people don’t realize is that Kiki is really the 200,000-year-old mother of humanity. She is a time surfer now residing in a fourteen-year-old body. Not even her best friend, Hazel, knows who Kiki really is. Amazingly, Kiki feels that there is something special about Hazel but is still trying to figure out what that special trait is and how it fits into Kiki’s life. Does Kiki ever find out if there’s more that meets the eye with Hazel?

My first impression of this story from an adult point of view was WOW! Just the thought that Kiki was 200,000 years old blew me away. Erik Larson takes his readers on a literal timeline of events at different times and locations that Kiki has lived or is presently living through. This novel is rich in details of multiple places and times throughout the story. Although readers need to pay attention to the storyline to help their understanding of the time travel, the transitions flow seamlessly as they take the readers on a literary adventure. Larson did a commendable job with character crafting as both Kiki and Hazel are well-developed characters with a great deal of depth, making them extremely relatable to readers.

Another point that needs mentioning is that although there are light moments in the story told from a teenager’s perspective, as time and locations shift throughout, there are also plenty of extremely heavy and mature moments of content. The topics range from a tsunami to gun violence, and oppression. Due to the deeper nature of some aspects of the story, I would recommend this book for older, mature teens and adults.

The cover design definitely caught my eye because there is quite a bit going on and the colors are very striking and vibrant. Just one look at the cover will let potential readers know that this storyline will be a unique and legendary journey, one which they’ve never experienced before. The cover captured the idea of the time travel and consistently changing locations that are found in the story perfectly.

Erik D. Larson is a decorated Air Force captain and Silicon Valley entrepreneur. He has written poetry, edited university newspapers and literary reviews, and published behavioral science research. This is his debut novel.

Quill says: The Kikiloa Chronicles is an intense and engaging science fiction novel with a very deep storyline that readers will relish. Fans of science fiction and time travel stories should not miss this debut!

[Becca Hanks · Rating 4 out of 5]

“‘When we decide to avoid, to flee a painful situation or turn away from tragedy, the meaning in our lives diminishes,’ Akamai said in a sonorous, almost musical cadence. ‘It is a false relief when the wave of a painful past crashes into nothing. We intend to cut ties with the past and wipe the slate clean, but afterward we're left with a jumble of possibilities that must be rebuilt into meaning.’”

thank you so much to netgalley for the advance reader copy! i really enjoyed this book, overall - this kind of speculative fiction is right up my alley, particularly when we’re talking about humanity, about love and grief, about finding meaning in life, about the rippling consequences of every action and decision. this book made me think, and the whole concept of “time surfing” was not only super cool but brought me some peace and perspective. i found the prose thoughtful and beautiful, i and really appreciated how the characters were really able to bring some relief from the heaviness of the narrative (emotionally and in terms of the amount of information relayed). my main challenge with the book was that at times, i felt the key emotional notes of the story or of specific scenes were getting bogged down in technical language, or just in the complexity of what was trying to being explained. in some moments, i even felt the writing style was at odds with the way our narrator understands the world and history - through patterns, through waves of meaning, knitted together. i think this is why i had the most trouble connecting with the mitochondrial eve sections of the story from an emotional and a narrative perspective. i’m also in agreement with other reviewers that i found it hard to see paha as a villain (if that was the intent in the earlier sections of the book) because i just… agreed with him! which then made kiki’s ultimate realization feel less profound. all of that that said, i was truly moved by this book and still found her arc impactful. excited to read more by this author.

“A verdant valley, miles deep, unfurled from the beach, cradled by soaring ridges of ribboned basalt. From its head, Nämolokama mountain shouldered into billowing white clouds, its crags laced with mile-high waterfalls seeming to cascade from the sky. It was a landscape of transformation, of cooled lava flows, fracturing cliffs, rushing water, swirling wind, rioting plants. Yet the vastness stilled the scene. Peaceful and quiet. Eternal.”

[Jennifer (Yodareads) Bishop]

What would it be like if you had the ability to go anywhere in time and ride the waves of life? Would you want to try and create a better world, or just enjoy the chaos and beauty that ensued? In The Kikiloa Chronicles, Erik D. Larson takes us on a journey through time and space with Kiki as she discovers what it means to truly make a difference in the world. Kikiloa (Kiki) is the mother of humanity in this story. She learns how to time surf and flickers across trillions of universes trying to find a way to guarantee the ending of time instead of depending on entropy. Will she be able to recruit Hazel and their friends to her cause? Or will they simply excuse it all as the eccentric person she tends to be?

The Kikiloa Chronicles by Erik D. Larson is one of those books that will make you think and process the world in ways you may never have before. The genre is science/literary fiction. While there isn’t much violence, there are some scenes that would make it more appropriate for an older audience due to the intensity of the moments. If you love to read books that stand outside of the typical genres and give you reasons to think, this is definitely one for you!

For the full review go to Reader Views.

[Jennifer · Rating 4 out of 5]

The Kikiloa Chronicles: A Literary Science Fiction Novel of Time Travel, Magical Realism and an Irrepressible Mitochondrial Eve by Erik Larson.
4 of 5 Stars.

I did find this intriguing book to be a bit confusing, but at the same time I couldn’t stop reading it, wanting to know how it would end. This debut asks ‘Is it better to hope, or accept the end?’, at the end of the book I’m still not sure of the answer, but I did enjoy the journey. Kikiloa, is both a 200,000-year-old Mitochondrial Eve and also a modern day teenager. Kiki is ancient beyond measure, and everywhere at once, she time-surfs across the different universes, in order to discover the answer to time’s inevitable end. It’s definitely a multilayered story, and the descriptive narrative does a good job of bringing the various settings and eras vividly to life. I loved the dynamic between Kiki and her ‘ordinary’ friend Hazel. Quirky, intriguing and definitely original, this story took me on an emotional rollercoaster. The author definitely has an imagination and the story he’s weaved got me thinking, and stayed with me long after I had turned the last page.

[Rae Holcomb · Rating 2 out of 5]

Thank you Net Galley for a free copy of this book in exchange for a fair review.

Unfortunately, I just couldn’t get into this one.

I picked up The Kikiloa Chronicles for a few reasons. One was the colorful and artistic cover. Another was the promise of a truly entangled time travel plot (I love multiversal time travel as a trope.) Third was the modern day setting in San Francisco, a place that I know and love. And the main character, Kiki, shares a name with an ex I’m still rather fond of.

If you’re thinking that that last one might not be the best reason to pick up a book, consider it foreshadowing for the rest of this review.

The Kikiloa Chronicles follows Kiki, a “time surfer” who rides the swells of the multiverse and its infinite branches of possibility. She started out human—a prehistoric human, actually, and more on that in a second—but became a time surfer and is now searching for a way to reverse entropy and save the multiverse from its eventual and inevitable ending. Her plan revolves around Hazel, a normal teenager from modern day San Francisco who seems to have the ability to modify nearby universe branches to smooth over seemingly-inevitable disasters.

At least, that’s what the plot keeps promising to be about. The first sin of this book is its total lack of momentum. Core to this problem is the frankly confusing characterization of the main antagonist, Paha. Paha is another time surfer and Kiki’s former mentor, who now seems to be… doing…. something? The book wants you to think that he and Kiki are arrayed against each other, but it is rarely clear what Paha is doing that is so terrible and needs to be stopped. At times it seems obvious: He hangs out around disasters where a lot of people die because it makes great “waves” that he can ride as a time surfer. The reader might assume this makes him a bad guy for not trying to stop the disasters and save lives—and the book certainly seems to want you to think that. But then the book ALSO goes out of its way to explain that even if he wanted to, he couldn’t stop the disasters. Kiki herself tries it several times, and finds that she can never save everyone. (Later, with Hazel’s intervention she has a higher success rate, but even then the solution is always imperfect.) So what makes Paha so bad then? I feel like we never actually got an answer.

The other thing that slams the breaks on the plot momentum is the constant jumping between storylines. I feel bad citing this as a negative aspect in the review, because this kind of structure is necessary for a book where the POV character is quite literally unstuck in time. (Slaughterhouse Five comes to mind as one of the ur-examples, though the subject matter and tone differ drastically from the Kikiloa Chronicles.) But execution matters, and the execution was not quite there for me. The main storylines in the book follow Kiki’s budding friendship with Hazel in modern day San Francisco, Kiki’s early training and adventures with Paha as a novice time surfer, and Kiki’s pre-time surfer life as the first Homo sapiens on the African savannah 200,000 years ago. There are also frequent cutaways to Kiki observing some moment in time, usually an inflection point where a disaster does or does not happen, causing many branching timelines. Not all of these storylines are equally engaging (I have a particularly dislike for the prehistoric timeline, which takes so much artistic liberty in its descriptions of early hominids as to feel like an anthropological insult.) While most are fine, there rarely feels like a strong motivation to jump to a particular timeline at a particular moment of the book, so it can feel like aimless wandering through the plot. This is not always a bad thing—I actually think it frequently does a good job capturing what it would be like to be Kiki, with your consciousness spread across a myriad of places and times. But by halfway through the book, I was getting tired of it. I was craving a *reason* for the time jumps. Some kind of promise that the book was *going* somewhere, and not just wasting my time.

Sadly, dear reader of this review, I cannot decisively tell you whether or not the book was wasting my time. Around the 70% mark the siren call of other, better books on my bookshelf won out, and I did not manage to stick through this one until the final page. There is still a chance that in the final third, this book pulls all its threads together into something brilliant. But given the 200 pages of “not terrible, but also not really grabbing my attention” that precede, I wouldn’t keep my hopes up.

“Not terrible, but never really grabbed my attention.” That really is the perfect descriptor of this book on the whole. The prose is mostly fine, though it does show some common hallmarks I associate with self-published books (over-explaining emotional beats, some choppy dialogue, descriptions of transitional scenes that don’t need to be there and would probably be cut by a professional editor.) The characters don’t grate, but other than Kiki they never acquire that much depth.

It’s got its gem moments that shine through. I love the way the book engages with multiversal time travel through the metaphor of surfing, it works extremely well to describe what the experience of vast beings like Kiki and Paha might be like. I like how it describes “going wide” when Kiki opens her consciousness to encompass many timelines at once, and the way the book desribes exploring many different branches of possibility and meaning. But these gems fail to be in service of a compelling holistic story, and because of that it couldn’t hold my attention all the way to its final page.

Alas. It turns out that, like my ex, I was more in love with the concept of The Kikiloa Chronicles than the actual book itself.

2.5 / 5 stars.

[Alli · Rating 4 out of 5]

The Kikiloa Chronicles by Erik Larson was definitely a unique read! Time travel, magical realism, and the idea of a mitochondrial Eve made for a story that was very different from my usual mysteries and romances. There was a lot to take in, but I enjoyed the way the story blended science fiction with bigger questions about humanity, time, and where we come from.

It took me a little bit to settle into the story, but once I did, I was curious to see where it would go. Definitely an interesting book to step outside my usual reading comfort zone!

[Lucinda · Rating 4 out of 5]

Wow, what a ride! *The Kikiloa Chronicles* is a multi-layered tale featuring Kikiloa, or Kiki to her friends. Although she appears to be a 14-year-old teenager in San Francisco, she is actually a time surfer who is over 200,000 years old—known as the Mitochondrial Eve.

The narrative intertwines time travel, magical realism, philosophy, morality, and a quest to save humanity. Kiki herself is a fascinating character, and experiencing her story through various ages, timelines, universes, and perspectives can be confusing but ultimately rewarding. It is unlike anything else I have ever read.

[Jess Dimmock · Rating 5 out of 5]

Whoa.. This wasn't a book, this was a revelation. Such artistry and poetry. The way this tale skips through time and space, it feels like it should be confusing, but it isn't! The flow is organic and beautiful. Kikiloa's story is absolutely breathtaking and spectacular!

[Christine · Rating 4 out of 5]

It's Quantum Leap and the Time Variance Authority all mashed up, with Kiki trying to stop the inevitable erasure from entropy. This is a twisting, time-jumping, multiverse-surfing saga about Mitochondrial Eve and her fight against entropy. The story takes patience to follow, but it's worth it. Character development is a little spotty in some areas, and there are one or two little loose ends (but there is a second book that is on my to-read list that I'm hopeful will fill in the gaps on both accounts). Both heart-warming and heartbreaking, it's worth the mental energy needed to get through this -- even if you might have to stare at the wall or off into space for a few minutes to philosophize on the weight of how big things like time, infinity and the expansion of the Universe really are.

[READER VIEWS · Rating 5 out of 5]

In The Kikiloa Chronicles, Erik D. Larson crafts an ambitious and emotionally sincere adventure novel that is equal parts science fiction, mythology, spirituality, and coming-of-age fiction. The novel essentially asks a simple question: if all things end, where does meaning come from? Not content with simply philosophizing, Larson builds a huge narrative framework around the question, spanning 200,000 years of human history, countless parallel universes, and the intimate emotional lives of a handful of teenagers.

Kiki is the novel’s greatest strength and a fascinating creation: the mitochondrial mother of humanity, a prehistoric woman who became a time surfer after her death and now inhabits the body of a fourteen-year-old girl in present-day San Francisco. Convinced that her friend Hazel is a rare catalyst whose choices generate unusually powerful waves of meaning across parallel universes, Kiki becomes increasingly obsessed with understanding her significance. Her ability to flicker across timelines and perceive meaning as “waves” gives the book its cosmic scale, but her loneliness gives it its heart.

For all her power, Kiki remains deeply human. She longs for connection, struggles with trauma, projects her hopes onto others, and repeatedly mistakes self-sacrifice for wisdom. The novel succeeds because its vast metaphysical machinery remains firmly anchored in Kiki’s emotional journey.

Rather than a conventional villain, Paha functions as Kiki’s philosophical opposite. Having witnessed suffering across trillions of lives, he has concluded that meaning reaches its highest expression through endings and loss. His willingness to transform disaster into myth, whether among ancient Hawaiians or during the novel’s climactic shooting, creates a powerful tension with Kiki’s stubborn hopefulness. Yet the novel never reduces him to an evil caricature. His final scenes reveal a character driven less by malice than by a profound misunderstanding of love and meaning.

The book is massive in scope. One chapter may take readers into prehistoric Africa, another into ancient Hawaii, another to the heat-death of the cosmos. Time surfing allows the narrative to leap effortlessly between personal memory, speculative cosmology, and mythic history. Despite the complexity of the premise, the author generally succeeds in keeping the emotional stakes clear. The story is less concerned with the mechanics of time travel than with how perspective changes the way we understand suffering, mortality, and connection.

The novel also poses questions about destiny, synchronicity, trauma, free will, and personal responsibility. The recurring imagery of waves, ribbons, trees, light, and oceans creates a symbolic framework that ties together events separated by millennia. At times the novel feels almost like a spiritual text disguised as speculative fiction. Readers familiar with Jung, Buddhist thought, or process philosophy will recognize many of the ideas being explored, though they are filtered through an accessible adventure narrative.

The climax delivers both action and revelation. The violent conclusion provides genuine tension while forcing every major character to confront the consequences of their beliefs. Larson ultimately grounds his expansive ideas in a surprisingly intimate emotional resolution, ensuring that the novel’s biggest questions remain personal rather than merely cosmic.

The Kikiloa Chronicles is ultimately a novel about hope. Not naïve optimism, but the difficult choice to continue loving despite loss, uncertainty, and mortality. Beneath its multiversal scope and speculative imagination lies a surprisingly intimate story about learning to accept oneself and allowing others the freedom to become who they are. This is thoughtful, original, and emotionally resonant science fiction that leaves readers with much to ponder long after the final page. What would it be like if you had the ability to go anywhere in time and ride the waves of life? Would you want to try to create a better world, or just enjoy the chaos and beauty that ensued? In The Kikiloa Chronicles, Erik D. Larson takes us on a journey through time and space with Kiki as she discovers what it means to truly make a difference in the world. Kikiloa (Kiki) is the mother of humanity in this story. She learns how to time surf and flickers across trillions of universes, trying to find a way to hold off the ending of time instead of depending on entropy. Will she be able to recruit Hazel and their friends to her cause? Or will they simply excuse it all as the eccentric person she tends to be?

This is what I like to call a book all in its own genre. While there is time travel, there are also many discussions on life and what it could mean; there is a lot of philosophy wrapped up in this wild ride of an adventure. Kiki comes off as someone who loves adventure and doing crazy things. As we learn more about her and exactly what kind of life she’s lived, we begin to understand that there is so much that fuels her personality and desires in life. We get to see all the characters in the story as they grow and learn through interactions with each other and unchangeable circumstances in life.

There is a big focus on riding the waves of life and the different branches that can form from the decisions we make. We get to explore different areas and times of the world through Kikiloa’s adventures. Larson does a fantastic job of depicting where in time we are, so there is no confusion on the reader’s end. Also, the descriptions of each place are so well done that I could imagine exactly what was going on in each scene.

There were moments in the writing where it was almost hard to decipher what was being said; however, it seemed intentional to show us how Kikiloa learned to communicate with others and in different cultures and languages. It also added to the eccentric feel of her personality.

The Kikiloa Chronicles by Erik D. Larson is one of those books that will make you think and process the world in ways you may never have before. The genre is science/literary fiction. While there isn’t much violence, there are some scenes that would make it more appropriate for an older audience because of the intensity of the moments. If you love to read books that stand outside of the typical genres and give you reasons to think, this is definitely one for you!

[Molly · Rating 5 out of 5]

I received an advance review copy of The Kikiloa Chronicles through NetGalley in exchange for my honest opinion.

I should also confess that I originally thought I was reading a book by a different author with a very similar name. Thankfully, that mix-up didn't matter because I ended up enjoying this one.

This is a book that jumps around quite a bit, both in perspective and in time. One chapter may take place in the present day, while the next could be set 200,000 years in the past. Because of that, I was very grateful to be reading the ebook rather than listening to the audiobook. Having the chapter headings to orient me made it much easier to keep track of where and when the story was unfolding.

If you enjoy philosophical, thought-provoking speculative fiction, I think this book will really appeal to you. I'll admit that I didn't fully understand everything that was happening. I could tell there were layers of meaning that went over my head, and I'm sure I missed some of what the author was trying to convey.

Even so, I had a great time treating it as an adventure, and that alone made it worthwhile. I can easily see myself rereading it later this year, or perhaps next year, because I suspect I'll come away with a completely different experience once I know where the story is headed.

Whether you connect with its deeper philosophical ideas or simply enjoy the adventure as I did, I think The Kikiloa Chronicles is a book that's worth picking up.

[Denise · Rating 2 out of 5]

Thank you to NetGalley and the publisher for the advance reader copy.

This read like a fever dream. I spent most of it confused about what was happening and who it was happening to, and I never got the sense that the confusion was doing any work. It just was.

I finished it out of pure determination. By the halfway point I was no longer reading to find out what happened. I was reading because I’d started.

If there was a point or message buried in this book, I didn’t find it, and I looked.

[Erik Larson · Rating 5 out of 5]

For your consideration.

Kirkus Reviews

"An engaging time-travel romp that mashes up Jung and Doctor Who to masterful effect. Our verdict: Get it.

The so-called mother of all humans embarks on a millennia-spanning odyssey in Larson’s novel.

She calls herself Kikiloa, but she’s better known as Mitochondrial Eve: the woman from whom all people now living are descended. Born in “the deep night of Africa’s great rift valley” some 200,000 years ago, she was betrayed by her father, impregnated, and enslaved. In the present day, we find her living in San Francisco, taking the form of a teenage girl with green eyes and impressively curly hair, which is how she appears to her friend Hazel and her brother, Lee, who are wholly unaware of her true identity until she mysteriously vanishes. When “Kiki” then reappears, it’s immediately clear to Hazel that there’s something a bit magical about her. In fact, Kiki begins to suspect that Hazel has an extraordinary destiny to fulfill, one that isn’t shared by the countless versions of herself who have lived and died in parallel worlds. But while Lee begins to fear that Kiki is deceiving her, Paha (Kiki’s mentor) has turned trickster, bent on sabotaging Hazel through violence. Kiki must uncover his true intentions while grappling with the reality that her own life—and the lives of all living things—must eventually end.

Larson’s debut reads a bit like Sarah Hall’s Helm crossed with Doctor Who, if the latter story were told from the Doctor’s perspective. Characters grapple with the implications of their own near immortality and the unhappy reality that sometimes a person must die to prevent a timeline from breaking. Like Jasper Fforde or Douglas Adams, Larson is one of a true minority of writers who can make cerebral science fiction both lucid and entertaining. The book’s relentlessly forward-moving style never once loses momentum in the course of its 400 pages. This feat is all the more impressive given the scope of the subjects under discussion, which include prehistory, the last Ice Age, multiverse theory, synchronicity, and the end of all things. “At this moment,” Kiki informs Hazel, “I am connected to a trillion mes across a trillion branches of the multiverse”—a flash of the sublime that reads like an ancient account of a deity disclosing itself to mortals. The book’s thematic roots in the teachings of Carl Jung offer a refreshingly unconventional message: that embracing the most frightening parts of ourselves is the path to wholeness. “When we accept shame,” says a “time surfer” named Akamai, “we become ourselves. We think the unthinkable thought…We face our fears and discover beyond them bare fields enriched by fire, ready for new growth.” This idea will be familiar to fans of Jung and Alan Watts, but it’s rare to see it articulated at all—let alone with such power—in a work of popular fiction. This philosophical depth anchors the multiverse shenanigans in a tangible, and very human, reality. An engaging time-travel romp that mashes up Jung and Doctor Who to masterful effect. Our verdict: Get it." 
— Kirkus Reviews


The International Review of Books

"Thought-provoking, emotionally resonant, and a refreshing new take. Its unexpected conclusion lingers in the mind. Highly recommended.

The Kikiloa Chronicles is an ambitious and deeply imaginative exploration of time, destiny, and the choices that shape our existence.

At its heart is Kiki, a remarkable protagonist who experiences countless lives simultaneously across multiple universes, surfing the waves of time where every life creates ripples that extend far beyond a single reality.

What immediately sets this novel apart is its originality. Rather than presenting time travel as a simple mechanism, the author crafts an intricate metaphysical framework in which lives, choices, and consequences intertwine across dimensions. Kiki’s profound empathy places her in constant conflict with her mentor, Paha, whose pragmatic view of time, where resisting the inevitable only makes the suffering worse, stands in contrast to her belief in the branching of life’s wide and long meanings.

Hazel’s place within the story adds a compelling layer of mystery and urgency. Across every timeline and universe, Hazel emerges as a pivotal figure whose existence influences the branching paths of reality itself, causing Paha to actively seek out her demise. The resulting conflict drives a narrative that is deeply personal in its examination of sacrifice, compassion, and free will. The novel offers past and present, gradually revealing Kiki’s journey of self-discovery while illuminating the burdens she carries. Along the way, readers are treated to memorable reflections on life and mortality.

Thought-provoking, emotionally resonant, and a refreshing new take, The Kikiloa Chronicles is ultimately a story about growth, healing, and the courage to break destructive cycles. Its unexpected conclusion lingers in the mind, reinforcing that time itself may be life’s greatest gift. Highly recommended."
— The International Review of Books


The Wishing Shelf

"Wildly imaginative, surprisingly moving, and unlike anything else I've read—Kiki's voice stays with you long after the final page. Five Stars.

The Kikiloa Chronicles: Book One is one of those rare novels that feels completely unlike anything else on your bookshelf. At first glance, it looks like a wild mash-up of speculative fiction, multiverse adventure, mythology, literary fiction, and coming-of-age drama. Somehow, Erik D. Larson makes all of those pieces work together through the unforgettable voice of Kikiloa, or Kiki—a 200,000-year-old "Mitochondrial Eve" who is equal parts philosopher, prankster, survivor, and eternal optimist. From the opening pages, her voice crackles with energy, humor, and heart, pulling readers into a story that constantly surprises.

What makes the novel stand out is its emotional ambition. Beneath the time surfing, quantum mysteries, and universe-spanning stakes lies a deeply human story about loneliness, friendship, love, and the search for meaning in a world where nothing lasts forever. Kiki's relationship with Hazel provides the book's emotional anchor, grounding even its most mind-bending concepts in genuine feeling. Larson has a gift for balancing the cosmic with the personal, moving effortlessly from moments of laugh-out-loud humor to scenes of real tenderness and loss.

The worldbuilding is equally impressive. The story leaps across eras, from prehistoric landscapes to contemporary San Francisco and beyond, yet never loses sight of its characters. Larson approaches big scientific and philosophical ideas with curiosity rather than coldness, weaving discussions of entropy, parallel realities, storytelling, and consciousness into an adventure that remains surprisingly accessible.

Most of all, The Kikiloa Chronicles succeeds because it has a personality all its own. It's funny, strange, imaginative, heartfelt, and unapologetically ambitious. Kiki is the kind of narrator who lingers in your thoughts long after the final page, and the novel's themes continue unfolding in your mind well after the story ends. Whether you're drawn to literary fiction, speculative fiction, or simply stories that dare to do something different, this remarkable debut offers a rewarding and genuinely memorable journey. I thoroughly enjoyed it.

Wildly imaginative, surprisingly moving, and unlike anything else I've read—Kiki's voice stays with you long after the final page. Five Stars." 
— The Wishing Shelf

[Billy Buttons · Rating 5 out of 5]

The Wishing Shelf Book Awards
EDITORIAL REVIEW
15th June 2026
TITLE: The Kikiloa Chronicles, Book One
AUTHOR: Erik D. Larso

Star Rating: 5


“Wildly imaginative, surprisingly moving, and unlike anything else I've read—Kiki's voice stays with you long after the final page." The Wishing Shelf

REVIEW
The Kikiloa Chronicles: Book One is one of those rare novels that feels completely unlike anything else on your bookshelf. At first glance, it looks like a wild mash-up of speculative fiction, multiverse adventure, mythology, literary fiction, and coming-of-age drama. Somehow, Erik D. Larson makes all of those pieces work together through the unforgettable voice of Kikiloa, or Kiki—a 200,000-year-old "Mitochondrial Eve" who is equal parts philosopher, prankster, survivor, and eternal optimist. From the opening pages, her voice crackles with energy, humor, and heart, pulling readers into a story that constantly surprises.
What makes the novel stand out is its emotional ambition. Beneath the time surfing, quantum mysteries, and universe-spanning stakes lies a deeply human story about loneliness, friendship, love, and the search for meaning in a world where nothing lasts forever. Kiki's relationship with Hazel provides the book's emotional anchor, grounding even its most mind-bending concepts in genuine feeling. Larson has a gift for balancing the cosmic with the personal, moving effortlessly from moments of laugh-out-loud humor to scenes of real tenderness and loss.
The worldbuilding is equally impressive. The story leaps across eras, from prehistoric landscapes to contemporary San Francisco and beyond, yet never loses sight of its characters. Larson approaches big scientific and philosophical ideas with curiosity rather than coldness, weaving discussions of entropy, parallel realities, storytelling, and consciousness into an adventure that remains surprisingly accessible.
Most of all, The Kikiloa Chronicles succeeds because it has a personality all its own. It's funny, strange, imaginative, heartfelt, and unapologetically ambitious. Kiki is the kind of narrator who lingers in your thoughts long after the final page, and the novel's themes continue unfolding in your mind well after the story ends. Whether you're drawn to literary fiction, speculative fiction, or simply stories that dare to do something different, this remarkable debut offers a rewarding and genuinely memorable journey.
I thoroughly enjoyed it.
A ‘Wishing Shelf’ Book Review
www.thewsa.co.uk

[Literary Titan · Rating 5 out of 5]

The Kikiloa Chronicles: Book One, by Erik D. Larson, is a young adult science fiction/fantasy adventure about Hazel, an ordinary San Francisco teen whose strange friend Kiki turns out to be anything but ordinary. Kiki is ancient, playful, wounded, and tangled in time, and she pulls Hazel, Lee, Peter, and others into a story that stretches from the present day to deep prehistory, Hawaiʻi, possible futures, and branching versions of reality. This is a genre-blending book about friendship, justice, choice, and whether love can still be love when it tries too hard to control the outcome.

What stood out to me first was the energy of the writing. Larson gives the book a quick, bright pulse. One moment, it feels like a teen adventure with jokes, awkward crushes, and friends trying to make sense of the impossible. The next, it opens wide into something much older and stranger, with scenes that move across oceans, extinction, violence, grief, and human history. Kiki’s voice is especially interesting because she can be funny and reckless on the surface, but underneath that spark is someone carrying an almost unbearable amount of memory. She's charming, but she's not simple. That made me keep watching her closely.

I also found myself thinking about the author’s choices around power and responsibility. The time travel and multiverse elements are fun, but the book isn't only interested in clever mechanics. It keeps circling back to moral questions. What does it mean to help someone? When does protection become manipulation? Can you claim to be acting out of love while taking away another person’s choice? Those ideas gave the story weight. The book takes big swings, moving from playful banter to deep reflection very quickly. For me, that ambition was part of the appeal. The story feels restless in a good way, like it's always reaching for a larger pattern.

I would recommend The Kikiloa Chronicles: Book One to readers who enjoy young adult speculative fiction with time travel, found family, philosophical questions, and a strong emotional core. It'll especially appeal to people who like science fiction and fantasy that mixes humor with heavier themes and doesn't mind a story that asks them to think while the adventure is unfolding. It's imaginative, sincere, and bigger on the inside than it first appears.

[Jennifer Garrett · Rating 3 out of 5]

The Kikiloa Chronicles was definitely different from the books I normally read, and I wasn’t really sure what to expect going into it. There is a LOT happening in this story like time travel, parallel universes, ancient history, mythology, science, and some pretty deep conversations about life and death. At times, it was a little difficult for me to keep everything straight, especially when the story jumped between different timelines, but I also thought the overall concept was really interesting.

Kiki was probably my favorite part of the book. Finding out that this seemingly normal teenage girl is actually around 200,000 years old and essentially the mother of humanity was such a unique idea. I liked getting pieces of her past alongside the present-day story with Hazel because it slowly explained why Kiki thinks and behaves the way she does. Her relationship with Paha was interesting too, especially once it became clear that they have very different ideas about whether people should interfere with events that are supposed to happen.

I also enjoyed Kiki and Hazel’s friendship. Hazel gives the story a more normal, human element when everything surrounding Kiki becomes incredibly complicated. The cliff incident early in the book was where the story really grabbed my attention because Hazel finally realizes that there is much more to her friend than she knew. From there, the mystery of why Kiki believes Hazel is so important kept me curious.

My biggest struggle was with some of the heavier science and philosophical parts. There were moments where I felt like I understood exactly what was happening, and then suddenly we were talking about entropy, different versions of people across the multiverse, or jumping thousands of years through time and I had to slow down. I personally enjoyed the character-driven parts more than those sections.

Overall, this was a very creative and ambitious story. It isn’t something I would normally pick up on my own, but I’m glad I gave it a chance. The friendship, humor, and mystery kept me interested even when some of the more complicated parts went a little over my head. The ending also definitely leaves room for more, which makes sense since this is only Book One. I would recommend it to readers who enjoy time travel, alternate realities, mythology, and books that make you think. 3.5/5

[Danielle Smith · Rating 4 out of 5]

Erik D. Larson has a way of writing each scene so vividly that it almost feels like a movie playing in your mind. Whether you’re in present-day San Francisco or suddenly thousands of years in the past, the settings and characters are incredibly easy to picture.

I was a little worried at first that a book involving time travel, parallel universes, and a 200,000-year-old Mitochondrial Eve might get confusing, especially because the story moves around in time quite a bit. Surprisingly, it never really did. The jumps are methodical and purposeful. Each one connects back to what is happening in the “present” and gives you another piece of Kiki’s history and, more importantly, a better understanding of why she thinks and acts the way she does.

And while there is a LOT happening here scientifically and philosophically, I don’t think that is really what this story is about at its core.

For me, this was a story about finding yourself.

Kiki spends so much of her existence searching for an answer. Eventually, she puts an enormous amount of hope into Hazel and what Hazel might mean for the future. But the further I got into the story, the more I felt like Kiki’s real journey wasn’t about finding the person who could fix everything. It was about realizing that you can’t put the responsibility for your ending into someone else’s hands.

There is something incredibly human about that, especially coming from a character who is anything but ordinary. We can spend so much time looking for the right person, the right circumstance, or the right answer that will finally make everything fall into place. Sometimes the harder thing is accepting who we are, letting the people we love have their own paths, and understanding that we aren’t going to be able to control every ending.

I think that’s what stuck with me most about this book. For all of its time travel, multiverse theory, magical realism, and questions about the literal end of everything, Kiki’s story ultimately felt surprisingly personal.

She can travel across time and countless versions of reality, but the journey that matters most may be the one that leads her back to herself.

Definitely one that leaves you thinking after you’ve finished it.

[Susan · Rating 3 out of 5]

Kiki, or Kikiloa which means “far distant in time” in Hawaiian, is Mitochondrial Eve. She is a time surfer, traveling through multiple universes, some in the past, some present and some future. Many events occur in multiple universes at the same time but with different outcomes. The events have shared histories but different and separate futures. Kiki is trying to find a cure for the entropy that will occur because of this discrepancy and is trying to do it before everything meaningful is lost. Hazel, a young girl, is someone who Kiki believes can be integral in defeating entropy. Paha, another time surfer believes that resisting the inevitable multiplies suffering. Everything ends and it is the path to that end that is important. The struggle between Kiki and Paha forms the basis of this tale.
Using a wave metaphor, the author provides a foundation for the story. While riding the waves across the multiverse, many rise but do not break and remain smooth. These avert catastrophes, no disasters occur. Kiki believes a universe with Hazel in control can ride the waves smoothly and avert disaster.
Ultimately, this is a tale of the war between meaning and nothingness. What the characters ultimately learn is that there are unintended consequences for everything we do and, in the end, love is the essence of life and the meaning of being human. Love is the force that opposes entropy.
I found the premise of this book very interesting. I really enjoyed the use of metaphors and the imaginative way the meaning was conveyed. However, I had difficulty navigating the frequent time shifts and found myself, on several occasions, having to re-read sections in order to make sense of them.
The Kikiloa Chronicles ultimately conveys an important message, as relevant today as at any time in human history. Foolishness grows when we look away and love, not hate, is the answer.
I received a free copy of this book via The Niche Reader.

[Book.Athlete · Rating 5 out of 5]

The Kikiloa Chronicles is one of those books that is incredibly difficult to put into a single category—and I mean that as a compliment. It blends science fiction, time travel, magical realism, mythology, philosophy, and coming-of-age themes into something wonderfully original.

Kikiloa, or Kiki, is such a fascinating character. The idea of a 200,000-year-old Mitochondrial Eve living in the body of a fourteen-year-old girl is already enough to make you stop and think, but what really drew me in was how human she feels. She carries an enormous history, yet she is still imperfect, emotional, funny, stubborn, and capable of making mistakes.

I loved Kiki and Hazel's friendship. Beneath all the time-surfing, parallel universes, disasters, and enormous questions about existence is a surprisingly tender story about friendship, loneliness, love, and finding meaning in the people we encounter.

The story also made me think about some pretty big questions. What does it mean for something to have meaning if everything eventually ends? Can we change the course of things, or do we learn how to ride the waves? Larson explores those ideas without losing the sense of adventure and wonder.

And Kiki's voice! The story blends humour and philosophical depth throughout. Just when I thought I knew where things were going, the story took another unexpected turn.

This is definitely not a conventional science-fiction novel, and I think that's part of its charm. It's imaginative, thoughtful, strange, funny, emotional, and surprisingly heartfelt. I came away from it feeling that I had read something genuinely different—and those are the books I tend to remember.

A wonderfully ambitious and original journey through time, humanity, and the meaning of being alive.

[Ashley London · Rating 5 out of 5]

I honestly don't know how to describe the experience of reading this without saying, “Just trust me and go with it,” because there is SO much happening. Time travel, parallel universes, mythology, science, friendship, huge philosophical questions… and somehow there are still moments that are genuinely funny and surprisingly sweet.

Kiki completely stole the show for me. The idea that this seemingly fourteen-year-old girl is actually the 200,000-year-old mother of humanity is already enough to make you go WHAT?! But then you actually get to know her, and she becomes so much more than just a cool sci-fi concept. She's funny, mischievous, complicated, lonely, and carrying an absolutely enormous amount of history.

I especially loved the friendship between Kiki and Hazel. Beneath all the crazy time-traveling and multiverse stuff, there is this very human story about friendship, loneliness, love, and wanting to belong. And honestly, that emotional side surprised me.

The story jumps across different periods of time and realities, so it definitely makes you pay attention, but I actually enjoyed trying to piece everything together. It felt like my brain was being given a puzzle while my imagination was being dragged through time. 😂

And that ending?! Ummm… excuse me?! I NEED TO KNOW WHAT HAPPENS NEXT. 😂

This is one of those books that makes you stop afterward and think, “Okay… what did I just read?” while simultaneously wanting to talk about it with someone. It’s weird, imaginative, funny, emotional, and completely unlike anything I’ve read recently.

Definitely a book for anyone who likes their sci-fi with a little magic, a LOT of imagination, and characters who somehow sneak their way into your heart. 💕🌌⏳

[Emma Sinclair | The Second Draft · Rating 5 out of 5]

I won't pretend this is a simple novel, because it isn't. The Kikiloa Chronicles by Erik Larson asks its readers to juggle philosophy, parallel timelines, mythology and science all at once. Somehow, though, it never loses its sense of wonder.

Kikiloa is thirteen years old, mischievous, endlessly curious... and also Mitochondrial Eve, the grandmother of humanity. Stay with me.

She is a Time Surfer, someone able to experience multiple parallel timelines at once. The surfing imagery runs through the entire novel, with history behaving like an ocean and "big waves" representing moments that change everything. It gives the book a distinctive voice and creates some fascinating moral questions. If you could see disaster coming, should you intervene? Or would changing history cause even greater harm?

What I appreciated most is that Larson never hands the reader easy answers. These ideas emerge naturally through Kikiloa's relationships with other Time Surfers, each with their own beliefs about how their abilities should be used.

For me, though, the emotional heart of the novel was Kikiloa herself. Reading as the mother of two young children, I found myself seeing her less as an all-powerful mythical figure and more as a parent. She is protective, compassionate and curious, and the moments where she chooses whether or not to intervene felt surprisingly relatable.

This isn't the sort of science fiction you race through. It's the kind that leaves you thinking long after you've finished the final page, and I loved it for that.

*I received a free review copy of this book from The Niche Reader. All opinions are my own.*

[Shannen · Rating 5 out of 5]

This was the first book I had picked up by this author, and I really didn’t know what to expect from it. I truly loved the cover as it was just super interesting, and the synopsis was the most intriguing one I’d read in a long time. I genuinely don’t know how to explain this book without sounding like I accidentally fell through a wormhole and came back with a thousand-yard stare. The story jumps between ancient dystopian history, quantum weirdness, disasters, friendship, death, and perfectly average cookies like it has absolutely no interest in letting you get comfortable. And Kiki herself is impossible not to follow, because underneath all the wildness is this aching desperation to find a way around entropy and save the things she loves before the universe inevitably takes them away. I loved how funny the book could be one minute and absolutely devastating the next, because the humor never erased the darkness, it just made the darkness hit harder. There are moments that feel enormous and strange and almost impossible to picture, followed by something painfully ordinary that somehow made me more emotional than the giant cosmic stuff. This is definitely a character-driven read rather than a straightforward adventure, and Kiki’s voice is messy, funny, wounded, stubborn, and so alive that even when I wanted to shake her, I wanted to keep listening. If you like speculative fiction that is willing to get philosophically weird, emotionally reckless, and deeply human all at the same time, this is the kind of book you finish and then sit there staring at the wall for a while. I will be looking for much more from this author!

[Rue · Rating 1 out of 5]

I received a free copy of this book via The Niche Reader, and the concept of this book was really good. It's about this teenage girl (who also is the bringer of human life across multiple timelines), and she is trying to solve how her human friend Hazel is the key to stopping waves of time and life breaking. But the magic system was so confusing, and the book is told through Kiki's point of view, as though she is narrating the book to you. So it uses 1st person pronouns for herself which threw me off. Not only that, I did struggle to interpret the magic system, and the jumps in time that Kiki takes us through are very jarring, and I didn't understand why some of those time jumps happened. I see what the author was trying to do, and it is a great concept, but my perspective it felt underdeveloped and the writing was very descriptive, which made it a very slow moving read to just get through the main plot points. Which didn't help when Kiki would go back in time to tell us a story from her 200,000 year long life every few chapters. The use of mitochondrial eve and entropy interested me in the book (as a chemist, just to see them written in fiction), but the book was very underwhelming. I did end up skim reading only the dialogue, as the descriptions were a slow read. But this is my opinion, and I do prefer books with world building confined to the beginning, so then the middle and end is just plot, but the descriptive nature of the writing carried on throughout, which is not my cup of tea. But it was an interesting concept.

[Alisa · Rating 4 out of 5]

The Kikiloa Chronicles by Erik D. Larson is a Science Fiction (?) or a time traveling, shape shifting story of gods (?) or at the very least, everlasting people who can affect humanity through their abilities to visit times and places in the past and future as themselves at any age. Kiki thinks she has found the answer or at least an impressive prospect to join the ranks of the time traveling, shape shifters in the form of a 14 year old girl named Hazel. Kiki wants to show her the ways but her twin brother, Lee, suspects that Kiki, who shows herself as a 14 year old girl, has less than honorable intentions even though he can’t figure out what they are.

His suspicions are well deserved. In the beginning of the book, Kiki and Hazel witness a rock shelf that is starting to disintegrate and fall apart and Kiki convinces Hazel to go up and investigate (which of course is unnecessarily dangerous). When they are up on the shelf and the earth gives way, Kiki is nowhere to be found. The story gets more and more intricate in detail with Kiki and a few others like her are visiting other parallels and times with crazy numbers of universes.

The narrative goes into unexpected places and makes for an engaging adventure. Suspend reality for a while, and imagine what it would be like to travel to other epochs, meet other kinds of people and share activities and life lessons. Just be careful if you are asked to join in an improbable journey.

Thank you, Netgalley, for the prepublication copy to read and review.