Stealing Time
Stealing Time
By: Tilia Klebenov Jacobs & Norman Birnbach
[Fulfills prompt: ‘A book by an author using three names’ for the Shelf Reflection 2026 Reading Challenge]
Since Strangers in Time ended up not having time travel I guess I had to scratch the itch!
Stealing Time is part time travel part jewel heist (well not a true heist, more like a ‘let’s hide in the museum and try to stop someone else’s heist’).
The story was inspired by a real theft in 1964 at the American Museum of Natural History in New York: the Star of India, one of the most valuable jewels in the world at that time.
It was a decent read, but I’m not sure it’s one I would be excited about recommending unless you love time travel or the American Museum of Natural History in New York circa the 80s.
The main character is Tori and her parents are getting divorced— her dad’s dad was accused of stealing the Desert Sun diamond many years ago and it ruined her dad’s life.
She ends up time traveling back to the 80s, meeting her dad as a teenager, and working with him to try to stop the theft of the diamond and protect her grandfather from the fallout.
Since the two main characters are teenagers, I would categorize this as a young adult novel. I would say the writing style and level of mystery lines up with that. But I would, personally, not hand it to my kids if they were teenagers because of the amount of swearing in it.
I think the part of the book I found the most intriguing was the shock of going from New York during the coronavirus pandemic to New York in the 80s. From internet to no internet, from wearing masks and social distancing to everyone smoking and kids wandering around on their own, from cell phones to pay phones, from pausing TV shows to having to pee during commercials, etc.
It is pretty crazy to think about how much the world has changed in the last 40+ years and how amazed people from then would be at what we have now, but also surprised that some things are still around.
We simultaneously love breaking edge technology but also a good classic.
I also thought it was interesting to think about what it would be like to meet your parents when they were teenagers. That would be trippy for sure.
When you read a time travel novel, you’re not really looking for believability so my critique isn’t ‘could that really have happened that way?’— because it was the 80s and there were no rules! or real security!— but more that I just knew who ‘Snake’ was pretty much immediately.
I kept reading because I needed to know how the heist went down and if the outcome changed the future and kept Tori’s parents together, but I wish the big reveal when Snake got out of the car to go into the museum that night was actually a surprise instead of— yeah yeah, we know, moving on.
I also didn’t even try to grasp the time travel explanations about ancient stones and energy and matter and time and all that so I don’t know if it made sense. In the context of this book, I didn’t really care. The ‘how’ was not really a major plot point.
As for the characters— I liked Tori and Bobby and them navigating the bizarre situation they find themselves in (he’s suddenly a teenage-dad!) and the dad jokes, but the ‘bad guys’ seemed a little vague. Mike was easy to differentiate and Snake was his own person, but the ladies all felt like the same person. I couldn’t remember who had what background and who had what relationship to Snake. They were portrayed as somewhat bumbling (think Home Alone 3), but then the seriousness of the end scenes didn’t necessarily make sense with how I envisioned the characters.
Recommendation
I’m not sure how to recommend this one. The swearing pushes it out of recommending it to younger people, but the quality of the story and mystery doesn’t seem to be at a high enough level for adults.
If you really love time travel, are looking for a book with Jewish characters, or enjoy books with 80’s nostalgia (I’m more of a 90’s gal), then this may be worth the read for you.
If you just want a ‘fun’ type of book, perhaps this fits the bill (it did for many other reviewers), but otherwise, I feel like there are probably better books out there to spend your time on.
[Content Advisory: 21 f-words, 47 s-words, 3 b-words; no sexual content]
**Received an ARC via NetGalley**…. well… over a year ago… my bad.
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