The Bean Books, 2
Summer 1970: Bean Donohue’s sixteen, she’s finally got a good band together, and she’s crazy in love with her artist boyfriend Zak. She’s also about to get the coolest summer job ever, and her impossible mom’s conveniently out of town. So why does she keep ending up in 1953…or 1779? And who's that guy with the black ponytail and the Kent State t-shirt? He knows way too much about her. Should Zak be worried—or should Bean?
14+ due to sexuality and adult situations
Excerpt:
Bean found herself alone, just outside the house. The air was sharp. Tall trees that had just been in full summer leaf were suddenly bare, and smaller than they’d been seconds before. Bean tried to peer back in through the kitchen window, but the lights were off, and she couldn't see anything. She stood in her side yard, sometime in the past. It was happening again…
And It was enough of a shock that she didn’t even know how she felt. She’d been glowing from the night before with Zak, happy to have had Sam pound on her door with music and laughter. Bean stuck her hands in the pockets of her thin blue cotton robe, and looked up. The sky looked like early afternoon: pale sunlight behind a thin, high layer of clouds. In front of her house, underneath the living room windows stood three overgrown barberry bushes. Bean had never seen them before. The ground was hard and cold, and she was barefoot.
Alrighty, then. Damn it. Lately, Bean had been perfectly fine with life in 1970. What year is this supposed to be? She had no idea.
Zak said love is always why this happens, she thought. But then she felt the happiness beginning to leak out of her. If Zak were right, why had she slipped backwards just now? She had a whole June weekend to spend with him, feeling nothing but love…and now, this.
It made no sense. All she could do was watch, deal, and try to keep warm.
It really was pretty chilly. She tried jogging in place to warm up, which helped a bit. Her toes were soon numb, though. After a few minutes, a black car with big, round bumpers pulled into the driveway and clattered to a halt. There was the rasp of an emergency brake being set. And Bean’s father—very young, and too thin for his thick, grey winter coat—got out of the driver’s side. Bean put a hand over her mouth, and watched as he ran urgently around to the passenger’s door. He yanked it open.
“Can you make it?” Bean’s dad called into the car.
“Of course I can make it,” said her mother’s voice. A high-heeled shoe and a nylon stocking-covered leg emerged. Then came the rest of Bean’s mom, wearing a brown tweed overcoat and a floppy green beret. She walked a bit unsteadily, clutching a bundle of white blankets wrapped around a baby, which began to wail.
“Sh-sh. Sh-sh-sh,” said Julia as she wobbled up the walk. She stopped when she got to the front door.
“You wouldn’t happen to have remembered the house keys, would you, Tom?” she called. Tom patted down three pockets in his coat before something jingled. He rushed a key into the lock. Then he looked back at the car. Both its front doors now stood wide open, and he sprinted back down the walk toward them. Bean sucked in her breath hard, taking it all in. Was that her days-old self,crying, inside the house? Sixteen-year-old Bean felt a little weepy, too. It’s 1953, then, she thought. Just after my actual birthday. Wow…
The wind blew and she shivered.
And then there was a hand on her arm.
The sequel to Time Runs Away With Her is a great way to immerse yourself in the music and culture of 1970. It comes complete with time travel to earlier and sometimes frightening places. I highly recommend it for young readers...as well as readers who are young at heart.
The author has written a wonderful continuation of her original story.
Beans strange but fascinating story continues. Her mothers out of town. Zak and Sam have come to keep her company. Suzanne has at last broken up with her crazy boyfriend at last. Things are looking up so why does Bean keep slipping into the past? We are still in the 1970's mostly and the band is on hold. Suzanne is away with her family. Bean is enjoying her free time and taking advantage of having her boyfriend over. A summer job is on the cards. Her mothers feeling proud and the job may be more than Bean anticipated. As I said before this is a becoming of age series following Beans life. The 1970's isn't a decade I know much about and this is a glimpse into the aftermath of the swinging 60's. Sex, drugs and Rock 'n' Roll is in high spirits. The writing style is a little strange and Bean is a unique character. Her boyfriend is an artist and perfect for her. The story is addictive and controversial. Beans mother is full of regret and wants better for her daughter but everyone has to find their own path. Sometimes understanding the past can help the future. Beans gifts may be more powerful and dangerous than she realised.
The second book in Potter's Bean series is a winner and was my first read, but be sure to read all three books for best effect. Set in the 1970s, music and the period's culture dominate the settings. In Book 2, Bean and Zak are in love, the band is doing great (currently on vacation), and both have jobs at a radio station for the summer. Perfect huh, but not really. Bean continues to time travel without warning, often to 1953, but most disturbing are her flashbacks to the year 1779. For some reason, the radio station's manager, Crow, keeps traveling back with her. Turns out the year 1779 was a violent year in American history, and apparently in Crow's life, Bean learns. In fact, Bean has much to learn about Crow and time travel itself. Zak, the ever supporting boyfriend, stays by Bean's side through it all.
In Her Own Time, the second Bean book, picks up where the first left off and propels Bean and her friends forward and back into uncharted and sometimes turbulent waters. great fun. Sexy, spooky and full of surprises. more great music too.
IN HER OWN TIME, as a title, is a very nifty trick. Take it literally, and our hero, the time-travelling Bean Donahue, is safest in her own time. Take it in its common usage, and she will learn her ability at her own pace and in her own way. Of course, “her own time” is 1970, and this is a time-travelling trip for the reader as well—one which I highly recommend. Welcome back to the era of the Grateful Dead and Jefferson Airplane. Let’s reintroduce ourselves to the characters we fell in love with in TIME RUNS AWAY WITH HER: Rebecca “Bean” Donahue and the band—that’s also Sam and Suzanne—and also her artist boyfriend, Zak, who qualifies everything by the degree to which he deems them “bizarre.” Shake hands again with Father Tollman, and Odell, and that eternally frustrating mother figure, “Juuulia.” We know these people. It’s comfortable in Stormkill, perhaps even more so in July than in the dead of winter. We’ll see Deerfield Academy again, all the familiar places and people. I’m so totally into this … But wait—something’s wrong. As Bean grows up, the potential of her ability, her power, seems also to have increased—and as the old saying goes, with that comes greater responsibility. Enter Crow, program director for the local radio station. Bean, Zak, and Sam might find opportunities there—or at least some intern work between semesters at school—but there’s one hell of a lot more in this entry-level stepping stone on the way to musical stardom than at first appears to be the case. What if Bean is not alone in her talents? What if tripping decades back in time to bear witness to the tragedies (or, at least, dramas) of Deerwood Academy is only the first tentative step down, into a very dark place? In this second of the “Bean Books,” Christine Potter invites the reader into fantastical conflicts that are not only observed, but experienced. In the first book, the real danger was at home, in Bean’s Own Time, while the dangers of the past held the potential for truth and understanding—not (necessarily) palpable danger of their very own. It’s all different now. The phrase “something old, something new,” has never seemed so appropriate. I can’t say anything more of the plot without running the risk of spoiling things for the reader. I will say this, though: it’s easy for a lazy writer to haphazardly stumble into mere “product placement” when trying to recreate an era—either for her peers or for those too young, or too far removed, to have experienced it themselves. Christine Potter avoids this with surety and deftness. The world is real, the pop culture and the news and the MUSIC is real—and if we don’t recognize a referenced track, we want to YouTube the damn thing and get in on the scene. (I did this with Grace Slick’s misguided blackface appearance on the Smothers Brothers, just to see if it was really … real. And it was!) There’s so much going on here, as I might have said of the first book. There’s romance, yes, and fantasy—but also world rebuilding, character exploration at every level, dynamisms in personality change that come with age and change of circumstance, dissections of complex human emotional extremities that include grief, trust, and the murkiness of good and evil. ALL of this, and still completely digestible by a young adult audience. Or by me. I’m a guy, and I don’t automatically gravitate toward romance. And I’m 46. Yeah. It’s that good. It transcends genre. Christine Potter’s IN HER OWN TIME is more than a worthy sequel to TIME RUNS AWAY WITH HER. It’s a gateway unto itself, and anyone who doesn’t pass through is missing something seriously, totally, awesome.
IN HER OWN TIME, as a title, is a very nifty trick. Take it literally, and our hero, the time-travelling Bean Donahue, is safest in her own time. Take it in its common usage, and she will learn her ability at her own pace and in her own way. Of course, “her own time” is 1970, and this is a time-travelling trip for the reader as well—one which I highly recommend. Welcome back to the era of the Grateful Dead and Jefferson Airplane. Let’s reintroduce ourselves to the characters we fell in love with in TIME RUNS AWAY WITH HER: Rebecca “Bean” Donahue and the band—that’s also Sam and Suzanne—and also her artist boyfriend, Zak, who qualifies everything by the degree to which he deems them “bizarre.” Shake hands again with Father Tollman, and Odell, and that eternally frustrating mother figure, “Juuulia.” We know these people. It’s comfortable in Stormkill, perhaps even more so in July than in the dead of winter. We’ll see Deerfield Academy again, all the familiar places and people. I’m so totally into this … But wait—something’s wrong. As Bean grows up, the potential of her ability, her power, seems also to have increased—and as the old saying goes, with that comes greater responsibility. Enter Crow, program director for the local radio station. Bean, Zak, and Sam might find opportunities there—or at least some intern work between semesters at school—but there’s one hell of a lot more in this entry-level stepping stone on the way to musical stardom than at first appears to be the case. What if Bean is not alone in her talents? What if tripping decades back in time to bear witness to the tragedies (or, at least, dramas) of Deerwood Academy is only the first tentative step down, into a very dark place? In this second of the “Bean Books,” Christine Potter invites the reader into fantastical conflicts that are not only observed, but experienced. In the first book, the real danger was at home, in Bean’s Own Time, while the dangers of the past held the potential for truth and understanding—not (necessarily) palpable danger of their very own. It’s all different now. The phrase “something old, something new,” has never seemed so appropriate. I can’t say anything more of the plot without running the risk of spoiling things for the reader. I will say this, though: it’s easy for a lazy writer to haphazardly stumble into mere “product placement” when trying to recreate an era—either for her peers or for those too young, or too far removed, to have experienced it themselves. Christine Potter avoids this with surety and deftness. The world is real, the pop culture and the news and the MUSIC is real—and if we don’t recognize a referenced track, we want to YouTube the damn thing and get in on the scene. (I did this with Grace Slick’s misguided blackface appearance on the Smothers Brothers, just to see if it was really … real. And it was!) There’s so much going on here, as I might have said of the first book. There’s romance, yes, and fantasy—but also world rebuilding, character exploration at every level, dynamisms in personality change that come with age and change of circumstance, dissections of complex human emotional extremities that include grief, trust, and the murkiness of good and evil. ALL of this, and still completely digestible by a young adult audience. Or by me. I’m a guy, and I don’t automatically gravitate toward romance. And I’m 46. Yeah. It’s that good. It transcends genre. Christine Potter’s IN HER OWN TIME is more than a worthy sequel to TIME RUNS AWAY WITH HER. It’s a gateway unto itself, and anyone who doesn’t pass through is missing something seriously, totally, awesome.
