The Portal

The Cort Chronicles Book 1

By: David D. Bernstein

Narrated by: Geoff Sturtevant

After falling into a time portal during a Little League baseball game in Trinity, New York, 11-year-old Andy finds himself transported to a ghostly version of his hometown - 101 years in the future. Twisted metal, rotten wood, and garbage litter the seemingly empty streets, but Andy will soon discover that the city is controlled by CORT robots...and that this reality is Earth’s possible future. When 13-year-old Zack receives a strange letter that guides him through the portal, he and his brother are reunited, and together they must journey through a nightmare world that only they can change. But how can two young boys alter the present by saving the future?

©2017 David D. Bernstein (P)2021 David D. Bernstein

Interesting YA book

The Portal starts with an interesting premise and ends with you wanting more(which is good since it’s a series!)I would put it in a tween category. Characters are like able and the narrator is easy to listen too. I’d recommend for the kids in your life from 9-12.

Enjoying❤️

Very interesting to listen! I am waiting for another. Really it was an awesome. I will recommend to my others cousin.

Delightful!

Really interesting time travel book! We are in the near future and the 2 boys are necessary to correct the problems in the future! love the narrator's separation of the characters. Enjoyable!

A Time Travel Gem!

Fantastic story, and not only for the younger audience, but also any age group (52). As the captivating narrator takes you on Bernsteins' journey into a dystopian future, you immediately become spellbound by this new world and the two little brothers who find themselves seemly trapped after a portal takes them there. The story is easy to follow and filled with an extraordinary imagination. I will be purchasing this book for Christmas gifts. I highly recommend for all lovers of exceptional writing!
--Shana Congrove/Author of the Novels of the Breedline series

This is just the beginning

While I really want to like this story, it has a cool time travel element with a dystopian future, I can’t give this a complete review, since this isn’t a full story arc. It’s more like act 1. Plus as a MG story, jumping POVs is making it difficult to connect with a protagonist for me. The narrator has a comforting voice, but I don’t feel like he varies his voice enough for different characters and isn’t immersing me in the story as much as I want. I hope listening to the next two books in this trilogy will be a satisfying arc.

Worth the listen. Interesting and unique story!

Fresh approach to the dystopian genre. You are thrust into a world where you look for your brother in a future world while trying to understand/process why the world has been over run by a large corporation that brain washes kids and 'retires" the elderly early in life.

I enjoyed the writing overall, detail was given when it was needed and not when it wasn't. some of the sentence structure is stiff "Our plan was as follows..." etc. I'm sure that's for the sake of the targeted younger crowd for this book.

There isn't much loss or tragedy in this first hour, so it's a bit hard to be invested thinking they are actually in danger.

The narration isn't the best but it's bearable - no inflection or enunciates too heavily on some words. It doesn't take away from the story, just an observation.

Overall, worth the listen! Easy to follow, well written, and most importantly fresh ideas.

Prologue...🙂

Let me say that the time traveling dystopian future angle liked it. the simplicity of the speech of the characters is on par for younger readers to follow along with. I know this is the first one in the series but seemed unforthcoming with plot details.(kinda like Wendy😁) I will say it has piqued my interest enough that I am going to listen to the second one too.

A bit vague and confusing

The point of you in this book switches from one brother to another, and there is no real indicator of when that happens. You can get some clues from the text I guess, but it should be clearer. There are also a lot of things that should be explained, and they just aren’t. It’s a very bare-bones thing, and I think it should be flushed out a lot more.