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Throwback #2
The Chaos Loop
Peter Lerangis, the New York Times bestselling author of the Seven Wonders and Max Tilt series, returns with the second installment of his electrifying trilogy about a boy who discovers that he alone can alter the course of history.
Ever since Corey Fletcher found out that he’s the world’s first “throwback,” with the power to not only visit history, but change it, he’s been spending as much time in the past as possible. Corey loves using his skills to fix problems and help his friends and family. But as Corey becomes more and more addicted to rewriting history, he learns that time travel might change him in ways he may never be able to reverse.
Aware now that he can’t keep going into the past forever, Corey decides to use the trips he still has to change history in the most meaningful way he can by stopping Adolf Hitler. But when Corey travels back to World War II-era Germany, he quickly learns that the forces of history are strong and that it’s going to take a lot more than his good intentions to turn back the tides of evil—or even to survive them.
Get ready for time-warping adventure with a historical twist in the second book of the Throwback trilogy from New York Times bestselling author Peter Lerangis, whose books have sold over five and a half million copies worldwide.
Ever since Corey Fletcher found out that he’s the world’s first “throwback,” with the power to not only visit history, but change it, he’s been spending as much time in the past as possible. Corey loves using his skills to fix problems and help his friends and family. But as Corey becomes more and more addicted to rewriting history, he learns that time travel might change him in ways he may never be able to reverse.
Aware now that he can’t keep going into the past forever, Corey decides to use the trips he still has to change history in the most meaningful way he can by stopping Adolf Hitler. But when Corey travels back to World War II-era Germany, he quickly learns that the forces of history are strong and that it’s going to take a lot more than his good intentions to turn back the tides of evil—or even to survive them.
Get ready for time-warping adventure with a historical twist in the second book of the Throwback trilogy from New York Times bestselling author Peter Lerangis, whose books have sold over five and a half million copies worldwide.
304 pages, Kindle Edition
First published May 5, 2020
13 people are currently reading
109 people want to read
About the author
Peter Lerangis
153 books793 followersLerangis's work includes The Viper's Nest and The Sword Thief, two titles in the children's-book series The 39 Clues, the historical novel Smiler's Bones, the YA dark comedy-adventure novel wtf, the Drama Club series, the Spy X series, the Watchers series, the Abracadabra series, and the Antarctica two-book adventure, as well ghostwriting for series such as the Three Investigators, the Hardy Boys Casefiles, Sweet Valley Twins, and more than forty books in the series The Baby-sitters Club and its various spin-offs.[1] He has also written novels based on film screenplays, including The Sixth Sense, Sleepy Hollow, and Beauty and the Beast, and five video game novelizations in the Worlds of Power series created by Seth Godin.[2] As a ghostwriter he has been published under the name A. L. Singer.[3]
Lerangis is the son of a retired New York Telephone Company employee and a retired public-elementary-school secretary, who raised him in Freeport, New York on Long Island. He graduated from Harvard University with a degree in biochemistry, while acting in musicals[4] and singing with and musically directing the a cappella group the Harvard Krokodiloes,[5][6] before moving to New York. He worked there as an actor[7] and freelance copy editor for eight years before becoming an author.[8]
In 2003, Lerangis was chosen by First Lady Laura Bush to accompany her to the first Russian Book Festival, hosted by Russian First Lady Lyudmila Putina in Moscow.[9][10]Authors R. L. Stine (Goosebumps) and Marc Brown (the Arthur the Aardvark series) also made the trip with Bush.[9]
Also in 2003, Lerangis was commissioned by the United Kingdom branch of Scholastic to write X-Isle, one of four books that would relaunch the Point Horror series there.[11] A sequel, Return to X-Isle, was published in 2004.
In 2007, Scholastic announced the launch of a new historical mystery series called The 39 Clues, intended to become a franchise.[12] Lerangis wrote the third book in the series, The Sword Thief, published in March 2009.[13][14][15] On March 3, 2009, Scholastic announced that Lerangis would write the seventh book in the series, The Viper's Nest.[14][16]
Lerangis lives in New York City with his wife, musician Tina deVaron, and their sons Nick and Joe.[17]
Lerangis is the son of a retired New York Telephone Company employee and a retired public-elementary-school secretary, who raised him in Freeport, New York on Long Island. He graduated from Harvard University with a degree in biochemistry, while acting in musicals[4] and singing with and musically directing the a cappella group the Harvard Krokodiloes,[5][6] before moving to New York. He worked there as an actor[7] and freelance copy editor for eight years before becoming an author.[8]
In 2003, Lerangis was chosen by First Lady Laura Bush to accompany her to the first Russian Book Festival, hosted by Russian First Lady Lyudmila Putina in Moscow.[9][10]Authors R. L. Stine (Goosebumps) and Marc Brown (the Arthur the Aardvark series) also made the trip with Bush.[9]
Also in 2003, Lerangis was commissioned by the United Kingdom branch of Scholastic to write X-Isle, one of four books that would relaunch the Point Horror series there.[11] A sequel, Return to X-Isle, was published in 2004.
In 2007, Scholastic announced the launch of a new historical mystery series called The 39 Clues, intended to become a franchise.[12] Lerangis wrote the third book in the series, The Sword Thief, published in March 2009.[13][14][15] On March 3, 2009, Scholastic announced that Lerangis would write the seventh book in the series, The Viper's Nest.[14][16]
Lerangis lives in New York City with his wife, musician Tina deVaron, and their sons Nick and Joe.[17]
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Displaying 1 - 15 of 15 reviews
September 4, 2020
Lerangis seamlessly slips history into this time hopping story. This time the characters attempt to change history to stop World War II. It doesn't work but Corey manage to change enough that he changes himself out of existence. Readers see the after effect of his changes and will look forward to the next book after the abrupt ending.
March 26, 2021
After a recent series of successes, Corey is eager to up the ante on his time-traveling excursions. Although there are a number of time-traveling observers in existence (such as his Papou and his friend Leila), Corey is a rare "Throwback," someone who has the ability to not only visit the past, but to change it. However, this gift comes with a price:
"You want to save a person," Corey's Papou explains. "It should be so easy to do! But you fail and fail and fail. The frustration catches hold of you, the idea that if you try one more time...then you might succeed. You eventually give up. But that doesn't stop you. You keep going back anyway..." This obsession, called the "chaos loop," can also lead to other, more permanent damage to the afflicted time-traveler.
Assuring his friends and family that he has everything under control, Corey maps out an ambitious plan to travel back in time to stop Adolf Hitler by any means necessary. With Leila's (convenient) knowledge of German, the two friends head back to 1930s Germany. Corey will soon discover that changing history on a world-wide level is not as simple as it seems, and every decision has life-altering consequences.
I went into this book with a little bit of hesitation. When the time-traveling mission is to prevent World War II, you hope that the story doesn't come off overblown and corny. "How do we stop Hitler? Push him into traffic. Great idea, let's go!" Fortunately, Peter Lerangis' storyline is more complex than that. He explores several different scenarios, some I hadn't considered. He also addresses the potential morality of time travel:
"Okay," Leila hypothesizes. "Close your eyes. Imagine you have a gun in your hand. Somehow, conveniently, you're face-to-face with Hitler...do you see yourself lifting the gun and killing him? Even though he's Hitler? Are you capable of that? Or does your hand start to wobble? Do you have second thoughts?" It makes you think...
Then there is the ending. I didn't really expect it, and of course, the book concludes with a cliff-hanger. Fortunately, the third book has recently come out, so...TO THE LIBRARY!
"You want to save a person," Corey's Papou explains. "It should be so easy to do! But you fail and fail and fail. The frustration catches hold of you, the idea that if you try one more time...then you might succeed. You eventually give up. But that doesn't stop you. You keep going back anyway..." This obsession, called the "chaos loop," can also lead to other, more permanent damage to the afflicted time-traveler.
Assuring his friends and family that he has everything under control, Corey maps out an ambitious plan to travel back in time to stop Adolf Hitler by any means necessary. With Leila's (convenient) knowledge of German, the two friends head back to 1930s Germany. Corey will soon discover that changing history on a world-wide level is not as simple as it seems, and every decision has life-altering consequences.
I went into this book with a little bit of hesitation. When the time-traveling mission is to prevent World War II, you hope that the story doesn't come off overblown and corny. "How do we stop Hitler? Push him into traffic. Great idea, let's go!" Fortunately, Peter Lerangis' storyline is more complex than that. He explores several different scenarios, some I hadn't considered. He also addresses the potential morality of time travel:
"Okay," Leila hypothesizes. "Close your eyes. Imagine you have a gun in your hand. Somehow, conveniently, you're face-to-face with Hitler...do you see yourself lifting the gun and killing him? Even though he's Hitler? Are you capable of that? Or does your hand start to wobble? Do you have second thoughts?" It makes you think...
Then there is the ending. I didn't really expect it, and of course, the book concludes with a cliff-hanger. Fortunately, the third book has recently come out, so...TO THE LIBRARY!
July 30, 2023
The second book in the Throwback series follows Corey a little after the events of the first one. He's become addicted to time travel & wants to make the most of his ability to travel back in time and change the past for the better. When he learns that he might burn out soon, he decides to stop Hitler, this time bringing his friend Leila for the ride.
As someone who had trouble connecting with Book 1, Chaos Loop was a massive improvement. While I still wasn't connecting with Corey on a massive level, I did feel that his character was better developed. The idea of someone being addicted to helping people is interesting, and I felt that his impulsive nature got him into trouble more than in the last book. Similarly, Leila was handled much better. I felt that she didn't really add much to Book 1 and that her scenes were completely pointless, but in Chaos Loop, she is actively helping Corey and serves as a much-needed voice of reason and moral compass.
The plot is focused and interesting. The story sees Corey and Leila trying a few different tactics on stopping Hitler. They have to grapple with setbacks and have a few interesting conversations on the morality of time travel.
All that being said, I still didn't connect with the characters as much as I want to. While the plot was interesting, 'go back in time and kill Hitler' is a very cliche use of time travel powers, and that really did drag the story down for me. I also had trouble remembering when the story switched to Leila's perspective - there is very little difference in how the narrative is colored from her POV so I usually would mid-scene start thinking the POV was Corey's. The third act is by far the most interesting, but, personally, I could see what the outcome of it all was going to be from a mile away.
As someone who had trouble connecting with Book 1, Chaos Loop was a massive improvement. While I still wasn't connecting with Corey on a massive level, I did feel that his character was better developed. The idea of someone being addicted to helping people is interesting, and I felt that his impulsive nature got him into trouble more than in the last book. Similarly, Leila was handled much better. I felt that she didn't really add much to Book 1 and that her scenes were completely pointless, but in Chaos Loop, she is actively helping Corey and serves as a much-needed voice of reason and moral compass.
The plot is focused and interesting. The story sees Corey and Leila trying a few different tactics on stopping Hitler. They have to grapple with setbacks and have a few interesting conversations on the morality of time travel.
All that being said, I still didn't connect with the characters as much as I want to. While the plot was interesting, 'go back in time and kill Hitler' is a very cliche use of time travel powers, and that really did drag the story down for me. I also had trouble remembering when the story switched to Leila's perspective - there is very little difference in how the narrative is colored from her POV so I usually would mid-scene start thinking the POV was Corey's. The third act is by far the most interesting, but, personally, I could see what the outcome of it all was going to be from a mile away.
April 13, 2020
Corey Fletcher saved his grandmother in book 1 and now he wants to save the world. With him being a "throwback", someone who can time travel and CHANGE what happened, he has determined he needs to fix the world, in particular Hitler and the Holocaust. His grandfather warns him of time travelling too much because of transspeciation (changing into another species) like some other time travellers have done. They really don't know how or why it happens and each one is different, so Corey is not too worried about it. He just will look for the signs: hair growing in odd places, weird food cravings, etc. He talks Laila into going with him, since she knows how to speak German. As they go back things of course do not work out like they think it will and they change events, but not anything big until the end of the book.
Was very slow at the beginning, but picked up once they were travelling. Does have a HUGE cliffhanger at the end.
Was very slow at the beginning, but picked up once they were travelling. Does have a HUGE cliffhanger at the end.
October 27, 2021
So glad I went ahead and bought the entire Throwback trilogy. The Chaos Loop is much better than Throwback. When Corey finds out how his grandmother's brother died near the end of WWII and realizes how much damage Hitler did to both his and his best friend's family, he convinces her they need to go back in time to try to make sure that Hitler dies in the bombing attempt on his life. But, they're thrown back in time sooner than expected and without the preparation they hoped to make. Will they manage to make sure Hitler dies?
Action-packed with some interesting history. I've read about the attempt on Hitler's life but never in any detail and I enjoyed learning about what happened in a palatable way. I would definitely recommend this to any middle grader or middle grade-loving adult.
Action-packed with some interesting history. I've read about the attempt on Hitler's life but never in any detail and I enjoyed learning about what happened in a palatable way. I would definitely recommend this to any middle grader or middle grade-loving adult.
April 19, 2024
The plot of this book was dumb from the beginning and kept getting dumber. And at the end, I was like duh, of course. I really enjoyed the first book. It wasn't perfect, but I liked the concept and it had a good ending, even if it didn't make perfect sense. If I didn't already own book 3, I wouldn't bother continuing.
July 7, 2021
So much fun! I really like the characters and premise of this series, and now I know I made the right decision to wait to read it until it was complete, because this installment ends on quite a cliffhanger.
October 29, 2024
A fun book on time travel and the chance to change history. I hadn’t read the first installment of this series, however it works well as a stand alone book. I read it as an adult to give to my nephew and while it’s YA, it’s a fun book!
May 22, 2020
I enjoyed this book even more than the first. That ending left me reeling. GAH!
September 7, 2020
Enjoyable read but I didn’t like the ending
July 12, 2021
Time travel and life changing decisions....is it worth it....are there consequences you can live with? Mix all this together with Nazi and World War II. A fast paced interesting read!!
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August 22, 2021I liked this book and how he went back to try to stop the nazis. It was a mysterious and fun and exciting book. I really liked all of it.
August 6, 2022
OMG!!! The cliff hanger at the end!
March 6, 2020
Since Corey figured out he is the first throwback, he has started to go back in time a lot. To help his sister not to get mugged on the train on the way home from school for one now he obsessed with changes he can make in time, addicted even, and he has his eyes set on Hitler. But can all these trips in time change Corey in unintended ways?
This is a awesome historical fiction book, one where you learn a lot and don't know it. At the same time this book is jammed packed with action and suspense so even the reluctant of readers won't mind the sneaky learning. The characters in the book are well formed and try their hardest to point Corey in the right direction but Corey doesn't always listen. I really can not wait to see what Corey and his friends and family are up to next.
This is a awesome historical fiction book, one where you learn a lot and don't know it. At the same time this book is jammed packed with action and suspense so even the reluctant of readers won't mind the sneaky learning. The characters in the book are well formed and try their hardest to point Corey in the right direction but Corey doesn't always listen. I really can not wait to see what Corey and his friends and family are up to next.
October 23, 2023
The most surprising thing in this book was that Corey's best friend didn't forget who he was, even after he went through transpeciation.
This entire review has been hidden because of spoilers.
Displaying 1 - 15 of 15 reviews