Rating: ★★☆☆☆
If I had read this book when I was younger, I probably would've liked it a lot. But my high standards in YA fantasy have led me to rank this book among basic plot, melodramatic books that are twice as long as they should be. I originally picked this book up because I bought the sequel at Half Price Books (I thought the cover was beautiful and I didn't realize it was a sequel), so I read this one just so I could read that one. Here's hoping the second one is better.
In terms of plot, this is just the most basic time travel plot I can think of. A girl finds out time travel exists, and she does it, and she uses it to find a missing artifact to save her mother who's being held hostage. I just felt like I saw everything coming, like there were no interesting twists. On top of the basicness of the plot, the book moves so incredibly slow. The main quest is finding this missing artifact, and that isn't even introduced until page 189 (39% of the way through the book). There are certain elements I liked, but those are more a factor of time travel stories in general and not anything the author did to make it special (I mean just getting to read about Syria in 1599, New York in 1776, Paris in 1890). And this all goes without even mentioning the plot holes.
This was a 3 star book until all the plot holes made my brain hurt. Obviously, when an author writes a time travel story they have to set the terms of time travel. The author doesn't really address things like the grandfather paradox, but just kind of implies that nothing that extreme as happened in this world of time travel... yet. I'm okay with the vagueness, except for the rules the author does set contradict other parts of the plot. And because it's a YA fantasy, the romance had to be a major point in the plot...
And of course there was that heady floral scent, driving him half mad, making him think of silky night air, and the moon hanging like an opal at midnight...
The tears collected on her pale lashes, but she did not let them fall.
What would hurt worse: the regret that she tried or the regret that she didn't?
Maybe that's why she wanted it so badly--it was impossible, and both of them were too stubborn to let themselves be told what they could and couldn't have.
I have never read a more melodramatic "love" story. There's no way it's not intentional, but I hate it. The insta-love does not make sense here, but I'm learning that maybe I'm just not an insta-love person. On top of their cringey interactions, the characters act much younger than their stated ages (17-20). This wouldn't be an issue except that they literally have sex and I'm like why are these actual children in the middle of a really vaguely written sex scene. Cringe.
The plot, romance and characters would've been so much more tolerable if they had been going on this journey in a trio instead of just Etta and Nicholas. I wish Sophia had found them out, traveled with them, and eventually realized that Ironwood was bad and turned over to the light side. There were just so many better plot directions this book could've taken in regards to Sophia, and having another female character with Etta and Nicholas would've been really good.
Extra star on my rating for diversity - and for expressly addressing how racial discrimination is different in different points in history.
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