Lepidopt finally gets up the nerve to "jump" but travels back only two minutes in time; still, this is enough for him to change the time-line and save the Marritys, though he dies.

Science fiction author James K. Morrow, reviewing the novel for The Washington Post, admired Powers's "brio, bravado and a salutary measure of lunacy" in writing the book, and called it "a beguiling genre omelet, a mélange of forms ranging from alternate history to science fiction, urban fantasy to occult cliffhanger, espionage adventure to Ross Macdonald-style Southern California hardboiled detective thriller.

"[4] John Clute writes that the novel is a somewhat farcical "12-step to daylight" in which, happily, "Life is a game which can be played": "In this sounding house of story, a typical Tim Powers plot unfolds.

... A certain proportion of Three Days is spent perplexing lay readers with exegeses of the theological and practical implications of Einstein's discovery, the time travel maschinchen he concealed after the 1933 disaster..." Clute says that the novel is not exactly clear, yet "the book ends in peace and closure, and it gives joy.

"[5] Andrew Santella wrote for The New York Times, "Powers's latest genre-blending thriller (call it an occult/fantasy/espionage/existential adventure with elements of paranoid rant) concerns shadowy groups of international intriguers racing to locate a lost discovery of Albert Einstein's that could quite literally change history.

... Frank Marrity, an English professor, and his 12-year-old daughter, Daphne, stumble on Einstein's secret and scramble to figure out what it means and how to keep it and themselves out of the hands of the mysterious groups—Mossad?

You might finish this overstuffed novel still unsure about the connection between Einstein and astral projection, but if you give in to Powers's imaginative leaps and relentless pacing you may find that a mere quibble.

Vary of Entertainment Weekly, in a mini-review, gave the novel a B+ grade: "In 1987, a widower dad and his young daughter are thrust into international metaphysical intrigue involving time travel, Jewish mysticism, and Albert Einstein.

And if we have a mind-bending panoply of the fantastic to absorb, we feel privileged to pay the price of entry—we accept it all as being part of the 'physics of the metaphysics' of the grimly glorious Powers universe.

If one were to glean a message from this story, it could be that, as much as we might dream of going back and changing events in our past that have hurt us to one degree or another, the point of life is to move forward through the pain, and not linger on it, tormenting ourselves by never learning lessons or growing as people.