All Our Yesterdays question

Time fixed itself. Because present James died he never invented the time machine so future James couldn't have gone back in time and killed Finn. There is no time machine and no future James- no one to kill Finn. But present day James killed himself(no time travel involved in that death) so he stayed dead. Does that make sense?

Lol yeah I had to sit and think that through myself at the end. First I was like WTF and then I remembered that now there was no future James. Although you should probably put the spoiler protector on this thread.

Finn is alive because James never invented the time machine so the doctor never went back in time to kill him. Remember how they kept mentioning that time is sentient and fixes itself? And that even if you killed your own grandpa and therefore were never born, a shadow version of yourself still exists to kill your grandpa? Well, because James killed his future self, time fixed the circular paradox this created by making him commit suicide. So Nate was never killed, the time machine was never invented and Finn didn't die.

It was actually a pretty smart way to get around the time travel paradox problem.

I still don't understand the ending of the book though.

I know how it ends, and I've been halfway through for months now. Do you think I should continue reading?

Doesn't this mean then that if future Em had succeeded in killing young James then Cassandra would have never been invented so she could not have gone back to kill him? That would make their entire mission pointless.