The Reboot (Jeez and the Gentile) by Stephen W. Hiemstra Review: A Faith-Driven Split-Time YA Adventure

The Reboot picks up with Tom, an eighteen-year-old college student who discovers he is drawn back in time to the era of Jesus. The publisher's synopsis frames the central dramatic question as: "What happens when we take on someone else's ambition and forget who we are?" Tom has been pursuing medicine at the urging of supportive grandparents, and the time-travel rupture forces a reckoning. Together, Tom and Jeez travel bandit-ravaged trails across Israel before embarking on a high-risk sea voyage to Rome, serving as Roman auxiliaries along the way. The novel weaves in period-specific perils — the sword of Tiberius, Poseidon's storm, Pan's Gates of Hell, and the political intrigues of the Judeo-Roman world — as the backdrop against which both characters search for the callings on their lives. Tom ultimately discovers his calling as he returns to his own time; Jeez, for his part, answers the call of a broken world. The book is published by T2Pneuma Publishers LLC.

The Jeez and the Gentile series occupies a specific niche within young adult fiction: the split-time (or time-slip) adventure with overtly Christian themes. Rather than keeping its faith content implicit, Hiemstra builds the theological argument — that each person has a God-given calling distinct from externally imposed ambition — directly into the plot mechanics. Tom's displacement through time is not merely a thrill-delivery device; it functions as the narrative engine for his spiritual and personal formation. This genre blending of historical-adventure excitement with devotional purpose gives the series a profile closer to inspirational YA than to secular speculative fiction, which is worth knowing before a reader or gift-buyer picks it up. As the second and final book in the series, The Reboot is designed to be read after Jeez and the Gentile (Book 1), and readers coming to it cold will lack the character foundation the story builds on.

The publisher's materials position The Reboot as an ambitious narrative undertaking. The geographical and historical canvas is genuinely wide: the story moves from the roads of first-century Israel — described as bandit-ravaged, lending authentic peril — to the Mediterranean sea lanes and onward to Rome, one of the ancient world's most politically charged cities. Reviewers connected with the book through the publisher's platform describe it as "both imaginative and deeply grounded in timeless truths," and Brien Benson, writing via Fairfax Collegiate, highlighted how the Judeo-Roman world's intrigues are interwoven with the two protagonists' personal searches. For readers in the target 12–18 age range who want adventure fiction that also asks serious questions about identity, purpose, and faith, the scope of that ambition is a genuine asset.

Because The Reboot is Book 2 of 2 in a completed duology, its accessibility is inherently conditional. Readers who have not read Jeez and the Gentile will enter without the character relationships and world-building that the first volume establishes, and the emotional payoff of Tom's calling arc depends on that prior investment. Additionally, the novel's Christian thematic framework — vocation, calling, spiritual identity — is not subtext but text; readers seeking adventure fiction with a secular or religiously neutral stance will find the book's design intent at odds with that preference. The split-time structure, while inventive, also serves a didactic purpose that some YA readers may experience as the story's spiritual argument occasionally overtaking its narrative momentum.

The Reboot is purpose-built for young adult readers — the publisher sets the reading age at 12 to 18 — who are open to, or actively seeking, fiction that integrates Christian faith with genre adventure. It fits naturally into faith-based school curricula, church youth programs, and home libraries where parents want YA adventure that engages questions of identity and vocation. Readers who enjoyed the first book in the series will find The Reboot delivers the promised resolution to both Tom's and Jeez's arcs. For gift-givers, it is worth noting that the series concludes here, making Books 1 and 2 together a complete, self-contained read.