Jump to ratings and reviews
Rate this book

The Historians #2

Exist Once More

Rate this book
After everything that happened last semester and so many of the people she loves depending on her, Kaia Vespasian knows the best thing to do is keep her mouth shut, her butt in her chair, and her head down. In a few months she’ll be a certified Historian, and with the position could come some leverage.

When the Elders announce that inconsistencies have been found in the holofiles—people disappearing and possibly reappearing, as well—Kaia worries that her meddling has made a mess of things in the past…and the present.

With her roommate Sarah still angry over the imagined betrayal of Kaia with her boyfriend, Oz, her options for cohorts are limited. She and Oz decide to team up to try to figure out what’s going on in the past, and whether the sneaky Elders and their Return Project have anything to do with it.

Kaia’s focused on the lives of her parents, her brother, and her best friend, but what if the lives of everyone in Genesis are on the line? First, she’ll have to figure out how to set the timeline right. If she can do that, Kaia will face an even harder task—putting the greater good above the lives of the people she loves.

309 pages, Kindle Edition

First published December 1, 2016

1 person is currently reading
273 people want to read

About the author

Trisha Leigh

13 books519 followers
Trisha Leigh is a product of the Midwest, which means it’s pop, not soda, garage sales, not tag sales, and you guys as opposed to y’all. Most of the time. She’s been writing seriously for five years now, and has published 4 young adult novels and 4 new adult novels (under her pen name Lyla Payne). Her favorite things, in no particular order, include: reading, Game of Thrones, Hershey’s kisses, reading, her dogs (Yoda and Jilly), summer, movies, reading, Jude Law, coffee, and rewatching WB series from the 90’s-00’s.

Her family is made up of farmers and/or almost rock stars from Iowa, people who numerous, loud, full of love, and the kind of people that make the world better. Trisha tries her best to honor them, and the lessons they’ve taught, through characters and stories—made up, of course, but true enough in their way.

Trisha is the author of THE LAST YEAR series and the WHITMAN UNIVERSITY books. She’s represented by Kathleen Rushall at Marsal Lyon Literary Agency.

Ratings & Reviews

What do you think?
Rate this book

Friends & Following

Create a free account to discover what your friends think of this book!

Community Reviews

5 stars
62 (28%)
4 stars
70 (31%)
3 stars
68 (30%)
2 stars
19 (8%)
1 star
2 (<1%)
Displaying 1 - 29 of 29 reviews
Profile Image for Norah Una Sumner.
880 reviews518 followers
Want to read
December 6, 2016
*It's published!* I NEED THIS.

description

ASDFGHJKL DO YOU HEAR ME SCREAMING FROM EXCITEMENT?

Trisha just hit us with the cover out of nowhere, I almost had a heart attack when I saw this on Facebook. I am so excited. And slightly terrified because of the title. Still waiting for the synopsis. Please be gentle towards my feelings Trisha.
Profile Image for Shannon  Miz.
1,506 reviews1,079 followers
December 29, 2016
You can find the full review and all the fancy and/or randomness that accompanies it at It Starts at Midnight
This is one of those cases where I throw the book at you and yell "READ IT.". Well, if you haven't read the first one, I throw that at you and tell you to read it. I looooved the first book so much, and was so excited for this sequel (and, for now at least, conclusion). And you'll be happy to hear that it made my favorite books of 2016 list!

I can say nothing about this book without spoiling the first book so... if you like sci-fi and time travel and romance and friendship and family all mixed in with relevant and timely messages (some so eerily timely that they made me shiver)... this is a series for you. It also ends in a satisfying way, though the author stated that she hasn't ruled out writing another installment, it is done for now- and I promise, it feels complete, too!
Profile Image for fatima.
695 reviews197 followers
February 19, 2017
3.5 stars!

"I didn't want to leave my friends, didn't want to leave this place of hope, actually, but we had responsibilities - ones that no longer felt too much for my small shoulders."

So, I can't say much about this book without spoiling the first novel, but this book suffered a serious case of the sequel syndrome. Return Once More was one of my favorite, favorite reads from last year, and I'm undoubtedly the biggest sucker when it comes to time travel and historical fiction. The ending of the first novel was set up perfectly for the story to continue in a sequel, so I was so excited for that possibility, but this sequel was really underwhelming and I had very high hopes for it.

I loved seeing Kaia again and watching how she dealt with having to keep her head down for a while. She's a character that I can really relate to because we both have to always be doing something, and we both would do anything for our family and for our friends. It was interesting to see the new dynamic between Oz, Sarah, Levi, and Kaia without Analeigh, but I really missed the original dynamic from the first book. This sequel focused a lot on dealing with the consequences and moving forward, which was nice to read about, but I also feel like it caused the story to drag on a bit.

The romance was something that I saw coming from a mile away but I just wasn't here for it. I love Oz and Kaia as separate characters, but I see them more as friends instead of lovers. They had their cutesy moments, but the subtle love triangle between Kaia, Oz, and Sarah made it a little more difficult for me to really get behind Kaia and Oz because I feel like the issue with Sarah was never really resolved. Or at least it wasn't resolved in the best way, in my opinion. I also so desperately wanted to see Caesarion again. Every time he was mentioned my heart clenched, and despite the fact that his romance with Kaia in the first book was a little insta-love ish, I just wanted to see him come back somehow because he's SO GOOD FOR HER. I'm seriously forever sad about this. But it's okay because in some alternative universe, Caesarion is well and alive and he and Kaia travel the universe together and live happily ever after. That is all.

Anyways, I loved the writing and thought this was a decent sequel, but I was just expecting so much more from it. I liked that this book dealt with a lot of moments in history that are so relevant to what's going on now, and I thought it was so interesting to see those moments written in. Leigh has a fantastic writing style and I just love the entire concept of this series!

"We weren't there yet, but as long as we were traveling in the right direction, we were getting closer to the world Martin Luther King, and people like my grandfather, believed was possible."
Profile Image for Chrissie Whitley.
1,315 reviews142 followers
February 6, 2017
Over the course of the past few years, I've discovered I love a good time travel book. Be it a Young Adult novel or not, mixing it with Historical Fiction or not, I love the delving into the past or diving into the future if explored properly. Where Return Once More was a simple and straight-forward time travel book that I found completely delightful, Exist Once More seems to be a book filled with conflicting ideas.

With this sequel, which I know was a difficult one for the author to get out to the fans of the first book, it looks like it's just one of those books where the storyline got away from the author, and in multiple directions.

First, what I liked about this book and its predecessor was that the main character, Kaia Vespasian, was just a girl. Yes, she was from a great family—explained by their presence in this future where VIPs are out in space searching through and preserving Earth's past to learn from mistakes in hopes of preventing them being repeated in the future. However, she is just a sixteen year-old girl who stumbles into a mess. She's not a genius; she has no super powers; she isn't the chosen one; she doesn't work alone. She grapples a little too much—internal dialogue droning—in this book, perhaps, it would seem, in order to lengthen the book whose page count still only adds up to 270 pages. But I still really appreciated that aspect throughout this book.

However, the storyline veered and wobbled so much in this book, especially during the homestretch, that I struggled with staying focused on reading. The tagline from the first book read as, "If you could learn the identity of your one true love—even though you will never meet— would you?" The second book strays so much from this idea, and even the idea we're left with at the end of the first book, that I felt like the entire arc matured beyond what Leigh intended. Constantly, trying to put the story back on course, Leigh seems to overcorrect at points which only led to more problems.

The idea Kaia explores in the series, that the past must simply be learned from and remain unchanged, comes into question when some renegade Elders develop a machine that tries to predict all possible, and the most likely, outcomes from changes made in the past, something that Kaia (and everyone on Genesis) has been taught is morally, ethically, and logistically wrong. All this comes out in the first book. The conflict arrives full-on in this book when the changes effect unpredicted results.

The ending—along with something from the Epilogue—go against the very idea Kaia and her friends are fighting to protect. I get it ... time travel is a completely imaginative concept (like vampires or dragons) where it's something that doesn't exist, and you can go anywhere with it. However, the mind must process the information and if the points don't all line up, all you're left with is a bunch of messy, stray ideas. I also understand that all these concepts are up for debate because they are interpretive, being created in the author's mind.

From the get-go, you know the past can be changed in Leigh's world, because they are so heavily cautioned, as students, to not screw up anything in the past where they're visiting. Plus, those crazy Elders develop this machine to try and predict what could change if changes were indeed attempted, which they clearly want to do (always for the betterment of humanity or something ignorantly noble) otherwise there's no reason for this machine, the Predictor. Aptly named. Now, the concepts explored the further Leigh goes into this story, the more fluid the concept of time travel becomes, hence creating more possibilities to have a part of the story conflict with another part. If the past is something that can be changed, and is not static or a shadow of what was, then Kaia's present isn't the threshold of time ... which should mean that her present is another time's past, and then open for, at the very least, visitors from the future—maybe travelers for leisure, maybe travelers for learning, but certainly the possibility exists that there would be travelers (either these Elders in the future trying again, or others trying to thwart Kaia's efforts to stop these rebel Elders to begin with) looking to change her present, i.e., their past.

It's a headache waiting to happen, but opening up the possibility for all that change, and all those possible ripples, it simply left gaping holes for me as the book plowed on. I wanted to like it very much, but I think Leigh just got in over her head here. While still fairly entertaining and rather sweet at times with a blossoming romance, the overall feeling I felt was deflated. It was just eh.
Profile Image for Precious Sagbodje.
416 reviews34 followers
March 10, 2018
Not exactly better than book 1 but a great read nonetheless since I didn't have to deal with teenage love too much. Plus I already mentioned the author has a great writing style. I found it difficult to skim.
😊
Profile Image for Sarah Elizabeth.
5,003 reviews1,412 followers
March 8, 2020
Pretty good ☺
Profile Image for Kate Bonham.
Author 51 books253 followers
February 5, 2017
Wow.
Just Wow.

I first fell in love with The Historians in book1 - Return Once More - last year and have been trying to find the second book for ages. How amazing was it when Amazon told me there was a sequel! The only downside is this is the last Historians Book *cue sadness*. Trisha Leigh paints a world so perfectly "natural" that I was swept up in the characters and the world she has created in the future.

Exist Once More continues the story on from Return Once More after Kaia is in trouble for her unauthorised time travel using the technology she had her own friend build for her, meaning she and her friend Sarah are both held back a year. This causes a lot of anguish between her and Sarah, and add onto that the fact Sarah's boyfriend Oz pulls out his True Companion card which is a card that displays the name of your true love, and it is Kaia's name.

Lots of tension.

The academy Kaia is a student of time travels back to important moments in history to 'document' where it went wrong for Earth. Only problem is, Kaia and her friends have learned that the Elders of the Academy have been changing history to stop the detriment caused by these moments in history and the ultimate cause of them leaving Earth.

What could go wrong with that?
Well, a lot, as it happens. It causes people to disappear and others to appear, but it jeopardises people Kaia cares about. She must make a decision to let it ride or to put a stop to the injustice and make sure all those terrible events do happen to ensure her friends stay alive and to set the world on the right path yet again.

Some things just can't be changed, no matter how terrible they were.

Five freakin' massive stars for Trisha.
Profile Image for Megan.
1 review7 followers
Read
July 27, 2017
I don't think anyone understands how ready I am for this book to be released
13 reviews1 follower
December 8, 2016
Loved the conclusion to the first book. Lots of adventure, angst, fighting the system and young love!
Profile Image for SCo74.
74 reviews5 followers
June 9, 2020
It breaks my heart to give this only 3 stars, but I can’t give the same 4 as for the first book.

It’s not a bad book, I just thing it strained too much from the structure of the first one that appealed to me and it dragged a little in the middle.

On the first book, the time travel and intrigue were nicely balanced out with the romance and emotional moments between Kaia and Caesarion. On Exist Once More, there was such a strong focus on the intrigue with the Elders and so many time travels, that I missed the calm moments to breath a little between all the confusion.
Anyway, I got so lost in this book… and there were not enough cute and romance moments to redeem them. But still I would recommend someone who read the first to read this one to finish the history.

Profile Image for Bea Bernadine.
11 reviews1 follower
April 24, 2018
This was not as good as the first one but I still feel that Trisha Leigh did not disappoint. I still very much enjoyed this second book!

Kaia was still as lovable as ever. How can you not love someone as loyal to those she cares about and brave as her? I'm glad she hasn't forgotten Caesarion with everything that was going on like the Return Project and the cliffhanger in Book 1. I couldn't help but smile every time his name was mentioned.

Although I missed Analeigh, I was happy with the Kaia-Oz-Sarah-Levi team up. I just felt like I didn't see much of Sarah and Levi in the first book. Their friendship with Kaia wasn't emphasized. Not as much as Analeigh anyway. Sarah was more often associated as Oz's girlfriend than being Kaia's close friend and Levi was just, well, there. Lol. Glad that changed in this book.

Also, I must say that their historical trips are one of the reasons I love this duology. I get entertained and educated (or reminded) at the same time.

I really have a lot of nice things to say about this book but the story seemed to speed up towards the end of the book. Everything was happening so fast that one moment they were in a predicament and then the next, they were in another. It was so fast that I had to stop reading for a moment and was like "Woah, slow down for a bit." It may have been because the story was slow-paced in the beginning that the author just had to speed everything up by the 3/4 of the book. And maybe that's why I felt there were still some things left unanswered and unexplored.

Don't get me wrong, I really loved the book as well as the ending! It was satisfying enough that you may read this duology without feeling frustrated by the end of the book. ;)
Profile Image for Constellations.
130 reviews7 followers
February 10, 2021
A worthy follow-up to Return Once More. All of the things I enjoyed about the first book --- the world-building, the time travel, the characterizations, the star-crossed romance --- continued on in this book, only with higher modern day stakes as Kaia & Friends raced to try and unravel a sinister conspiracy going on at their academy. Trisha Leigh did a great job of balancing the romance with the actual action plot --- and in fact, she gave more time and weight to the action plot than she did the romance, for which I am grateful.

I will admit...I was a bit skeptical of But that was just a tiny little thing that I didn't love, and it didn't really affect my enjoyment of the story overall.

Again: an interesting, creative, and well-written YA novel which deserved a whole lot more than it got from the publishing industry! Truly, what a shame that this duology was done so dirty.
Profile Image for Citta H.
109 reviews
July 16, 2017
It's a good book. I think this book's a bit unusual, like dystopian, sci-fi and time travel? Unusual. But in a good way.

In the end of book one, I hoped that Kaia would be together with Oz. And, I know she couldn't move on from Caesarion, because he was her first love and True. But, I just love Oz. The main reason is, I always love glasses, especially a guy with glasses, and Oz happened to be just that. A guy with glasses.

I have some issues though. Like, isn't time supposed to be constant thing? How could they visit a same place at the same time twice? or maybe more? Wouldn't they be meeting themselves​? that very thought made me dizzy.
Profile Image for DocDen.
65 reviews1 follower
October 5, 2020
3.5 STARS! ⭐️⭐️⭐️💫
Not exactly my piece of cake. Despite this, I quite enjoyed the first book and read it with pleasure.

This one? I finished it in one day because I was skipping between the pages. I don’t know if it was a me-thing, but I wasn’t emotionally engaged.
And for that reason, I’m out.

97 reviews
July 4, 2022
after such a good first book , this one felt rushed, like if the author was planning on doing a plot twist but they said, you got to finish the saga now. yes we get a closure but i felt i needed more and especially with the whole ceasarine plot, yes good that she found her next love, but history still hadnt been set correctly.
Profile Image for Erin Hogle.
385 reviews2 followers
October 3, 2018
So this was a surprising book. Just a little ebook I picked up on sale...so good. Amazing actually. Probably one of my favs.
15 reviews
February 8, 2022
Kaia Vespasian wants nothing more then to complete her training as a Historian, that means following the rules and not drawing the wrong attention to herself. Her world has shifted around her the people she once depended on are gone or to anger at her. That leaves Oz the boy who turned her live upside down. When people start appearing and disappearing through out history it once again becomes Kaia and Oz task to try and set things right.
I really enjoyed the walk through History in this series, the writing made me feel like I was right there next to Kaia and Oz experiencing the events with them. The relationship between Oz and his father though written well was hard to read at times and feel that there should be a tigger warning attached to the book. This is the only reason I did not give this book five stars.
Profile Image for Princess Kate.
3 reviews
February 4, 2017
Wow.
Just Wow.

I first fell in love with The Historians in book1 - Return Once More - last year and have been trying to find the second book for ages. How amazing was it when Amazon told me there was a sequel! The only downside is this is the last Historians Book *cue sadness*. Trisha Leigh paints a world so perfectly "natural" that I was swept up in the characters and the world she has created in the future.

Exist Once More continues the story on from Return Once More after Kaia is in trouble for her unauthorised time travel using the technology she had her own friend build for her, meaning she and her friend Sarah are both held back a year. This causes a lot of anguish between her and Sarah, and add onto that the fact Sarah's boyfriend Oz pulls out his True Companion card which is a card that displays the name of your true love, and it is Kaia's name.

Lots of tension.

The academy Kaia is a student of time travels back to important moments in history to 'document' where it went wrong for Earth. Only problem is, Kaia and her friends have learned that the Elders of the Academy have been changing history to stop the detriment caused by these moments in history and the ultimate cause of them leaving Earth.

What could go wrong with that?
Well, a lot, as it happens. It causes people to disappear and others to appear, but it jeopardises people Kaia cares about. She must make a decision to let it ride or to put a stop to the injustice and make sure all those terrible events do happen to ensure her friends stay alive and to set the world on the right path yet again.

Some things just can't be changed, no matter how terrible they were.

Five freakin' massive stars for Trisha.
Profile Image for Lizzy.
25 reviews13 followers
December 13, 2016
Very much enjoyed this conclusion to The Historian's duology. Seeing all the characters again was like coming back to school after a long summer and I was very excited to see what was going to happen after the cliffhanger of the last book.

There were definitely some parts that I thought could have used a little more explanation so that the reader didn't feel as lost as Kaia did, but it did aid in the big mystery. I even did a re-read of Return Once More before I read this one, and because of these 'changes' that threw me off, I felt it really hard to connect with these characters as much as I did in the first book.

Also, I do feel a little let down on the 'reveal' of WHY all of this was going on. I felt as though I came up with a great theory and throughout reading, I was expecting the author to reveal that my theory was correct at the end. That never happened. Definitely think that there could be a third and actually final book that could tie up this last mystery and show us more of what is happening in the present.

All in all, would definitely recommend that anyone with a love of time-travel YA books to read this duology/series!
Profile Image for Angela.
325 reviews26 followers
January 2, 2017
I absolutely loved the first book and begged and pleaded and maybe even stalked the author to get her to write more. I had to have more of Kaia, Sarah, Oz, and the rest of the gang. The premise for this story was just so unique and it's so well written that I craved more. Plus, I had to find out what was happening!

I am really glad that Trisha Leigh decided to write a second book. I also really liked the ending and how she left it open for more stories should she decide to write more. This world that she has built in the future and how past actions have shaped it just so, makes this a thought provoking read. I love all the history and I would absolutely love to be able to go to such amazing historic events and witness them firsthand like the characters in this story. I think that the ability to go back and see these things and watch the ultimate destruction of humanity and the world, would be just as provocative as depicted. While this story may be a work of fiction, it definitely has some deep rooted realism and truth. Fantastic questions arise and stick with you long after the story is over.
Profile Image for Cynthia (Bingeing On Books).
1,674 reviews120 followers
February 5, 2017
I hate that I could only give this one three stars. I absolutely adored the first one. I didn't hate this one, but I didn't love it either. The problem was that the book was just so slow. It took longer than I thought it would to read this one because it took me so incredibly long to get interested in it. The time travel was still interesting. I got tired of Sarah and Kaia's fighting. Sarah was upset with Kaia over something that wasn't even her fault and I don't even know why she was still with Oz, considering all the fighting. When the Elders discover there were people reappearing and disappearing, I thought there would be more action. But there just wasn't. Kaia went back in time a couple of times, but nothing really happened on those trips. I did think it was interesting when they talked about the possibility of changing the past and how even the slightest change could affect the future in ways that no one could predict. I thought the ending was a little quick and rushed and I felt like there were still a few things left unexplained.
65 reviews
December 14, 2016
I bought this as soon as I heard it was out and loved that this was a two-part series as opposed to a trilogy. It wrapped things up a little quick at the end, but it was great to see how the characters from Return Once More - which I loved - finished their story without any needless side trips. As with the first novel I just adored all the trips into history and exploration of the nuances of time travel.

Thanks Trisha for writing this - the cliffhanger at the end of the first book almost killed me with the wait! Loved it.



1 review
Want to read
August 30, 2016
Has it been published?
If not, does anyone knows when it will?
Profile Image for Agnes.
37 reviews
January 30, 2021
I enjoyed the first book, but I feel the plot in this book was a little bit rushed. But I enjoyed it nonetheless.
Profile Image for Erika.
2,840 reviews90 followers
April 13, 2017
Oh my god.
I never thought that I would love this books this much.
I just postponed reading the final few pages because I didn't want the book to end.
I postponed for 2 days!!!!!!!

(Someone's review said that this second book "was kind of slow" (paraphrasing) but this book is WAY MORE interesting than the first one. And I love the first one, so that's really huge...)

First of all, I LOVE time travel stories.
So naturally, I'm a stickler for the details.
Which, in this case, caused a bit of a problem 'cause I've been thinking "but.... bootstrap paradox!!" the whole time.

But this book was amazing even with that.

How should I put the overwhelming feeling in to words?
I'm not really good with words, so I'll just make a list.

-Love Triangle (sort of?)
yeah, it's a YA novel, and has buch of teenagers in it, so the love triangle or love something happens. It's kinda complicated.
But all in all, this book didn't do the "they're destined to eachother" cliche.

-"things change"
In relation to the point (or rather, blabbering) above, things and people and their minds change.
Even the history changes!

-Hiroshima
I know I know, this is a huge turn off for some people.
But as a student who lived in Japan for a long time, and had been half forced to learn about Hiroshima every summer, I loved that this story didn't shyaway from the horrible thing being done in the past.
At first, I felt uneasy about the fact that this book looked like it's justifying the dropping of a bomb, but now that I've finished reading, I think the messege was: We've done horrible things in the past, and we can not change the past. But we can learn from those past. Change for the better.

-the MLK speech
the famous speech was the key messege of this duology.
read the book. you'll understand what I'm talking about.

(not the thing that i liked, but noticed:)
-Deus Ex Machina...-ish?
Though I didn't hate the ending, that was a real Deus Ex Machina ending....


Oh but the ending scene.
I felt like I was with them. Listening to MLK.
I thought I could feel the wind in my face.

(I'll come back and edit the review, after I calm down.)

...the only complaint I have for the book is the cover design, which is nice, but I'm not a huge fan of YA-ish book covers. I think they make amazing books look cheesy.
If I can choose the deisgn, I'll go with the face of a watch, split in two, in each book? maybe?

Oh, and I think the duology is the best way to tell a story.
This entire review has been hidden because of spoilers.
Profile Image for Fareeha.
837 reviews5 followers
June 26, 2017
A satisfying sequel to a fabulous part 1. Where book 1 had the right balance of time travel-science-history-adventure, this book takes itself a bit too seriously and is more science-y. It also suffers from being complicated and simplistic at the same time -- complicated as it's very fast paced and might leave you in the dust if you don't keep up with the plot and it's scope; simplistic as the 'handling' of one 'event' eventually 'corrected' it all and tied up everything nicely with a cute bow on top. The characters are all done well again, everyone comes back in the loop, it's nicely written and has suitable twists to keep it interesting. However, it doesn't have the wow factor of book 1 and though is a good read but that one was better.
Displaying 1 - 29 of 29 reviews

Can't find what you're looking for?

Get help and learn more about the design.