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Five Stars --- This is a must read for any young teen interested in science or who just loves a good mystery. A few themes are interwoven nicely and a few secrets are kept along the way to keep any young reader engaged. Overall an entertaining read (for any age!...especially if you don't mind being brought back to your high school days)!
Four Stars --- This was a fantastically written book by a first time author, who gave us a nice twist at the end! I hope we see more books with this character!
Five Stars --- Enemy of the Future is an engaging, fast‑paced adventure that I enjoyed immensely. The surprise ending was delightful and added a satisfying twist that made the story even more memorable.
Trip Stewart is a standout protagonist. He’s the kind of character readers can genuinely root for—someone who stands up for the underdog, embraces being both “nerdy” and “cool,” and shows that kindness is a real strength. His personality gives the story humor, heart, and a refreshing sense of authenticity.
As a fan of Marvel and Star Wars, I appreciated the clever tie‑ins to those genres. They add fun layers for readers who enjoy sci‑fi, superheroes, and imaginative world‑building without overshadowing the main plot.
This book is sure to capture the interest of young readers as well as anyone who simply enjoys a good story with memorable characters and a positive message. And truly—I can’t wait to read about Trip’s continued adventures.
Four Stars -- I can picture new young readers falling in love with Trip and his adventures.
Four Stars --- Enemy of the Future by R.E. Trout is a fast-moving young adult science fiction thriller that blends time travel, biological danger, high school drama, and action-adventure mystery. The first book in the Trip Stewart Adventure series opens with Trip and his classmate Jayla trapped inside a pharmaceutical laboratory during an armed attack, then rewinds several days to reveal how an ordinary school project led them into the crisis. That opening gives the story immediate urgency, while the earlier timeline builds a web of suspicious cars, unexplained disease outbreaks, secret research, and adults who may be hiding more than they admit.
Trip makes an appealing lead for this YA sci-fi adventure because he feels like a teenager before he feels like a hero. He’s smart, observant, socially uncertain, and still grieving his grandfather, but he also has an instinct for stepping in when someone’s in danger. His developing friendship with Jayla gives the book plenty of warmth and humor between the suspenseful scenes. Their conversations, school pressures, awkward romantic moments, and shared detective work keep the speculative premise grounded in a recognizable coming-of-age story.
The time-bending element adds the book’s most intriguing layer. Trip gradually reveals that he can return to an earlier point when someone dies before their time, carrying his memories into a new version of events. That ability turns the time travel mystery thriller into more than a race to expose a conspiracy. Each choice carries emotional weight because Trip remembers outcomes that everyone else has forgotten. Trout uses that idea to explore courage, responsibility, grief, and the pressure of knowing what may happen while still having to improvise when events begin changing.
The final stretch delivers the full energy promised by the opening, with a pharmaceutical symposium, a stolen virus, armed intruders, betrayals, laboratory escapes, and Trip trying to keep Jayla and her father alive. The scientific setting gives this biotech conspiracy thriller a distinct identity, and the combination of teen relationships, speculative powers, and cinematic action makes the story easy to picture as it unfolds. Enemy of the Future works as a complete adventure while leaving Trip and Jayla with a compelling new partnership, a dangerous secret, and plenty of possibilities for the rest of the series.
Five Stars --
Trip Stewart and his friend, Jayla, have a school project: they must write a paper about someone interesting. They choose Jayla’s father, who works for a pharmaceutical firm. But before they can get started, Trip notices a strange vehicle following Jayla and her father at different times. When Trip tries to follow it at one point, he is knocked off the trail by a black SUV. This only heightens his curiosity. When he and Jayla interview her father for their project, he acts evasive with one question, further getting Trip curious about what could be going on. After he shares his observations with Jayla, she also becomes concerned. The two of them essentially become amateur detectives, doing a bit of investigating while working on their project.
In Enemy of the Future: A Trip Stewart Adventure by R.E. Trout, readers are taken along on a mysterious series of events in the life of a very gifted high school student. The story begins on April 21, then readers are taken back to April 17 in chapter two. This was momentarily confusing, but all is eventually explained in full, making it well worth the initial uncertainty.
During the week when a bunch of strange things happen, Trip is also going through some personal issues, one of them with the school bully, Karl. Karl is a big guy who is used to intimidating the smart kids into doing his homework for him, but when one of them is unable to, and Karl threatens to beat him up, Trip steps in to put a stop to it. I felt this took a tremendous amount of courage, but I also wondered why Trip even stood up to the bully in the first place, when most kids typically don’t get involved. Again, be patient and let this story play out.
Until the ending reveal, the story itself is so mysterious and intriguing that it kept me reading. I wanted to know what happens next, who the mysterious people in the black BMW or black SUV were, and why they were appearing to follow Jayla and her dad. It was hard for this reviewer to stop reading the story because of the desire to find out what happens and what kind of ending this story has. And what a very satisfying ending it was, too.
Trout’s Enemy of the Future is a YA science fiction novel filled with mystery and suspense. It’s also the first book in the A Trip Stewart Adventure series. Many surprises occur in this story, and the big reveal at the end is completely satisfying. Readers who enjoy reading mystery novels as well as science fiction are bound to enjoy reading this one.