I'm not sure if you remember, but last October I wrote a blog post about the boom of subgenre - YA novels featuring time-traveling topic. I was super excited about all those novels with time-traveling teenagers in leading roles. Unfortunately, my first encounters with this subgenre were a disaster. Unpopular opinion and rant ahead. You have been warned.
(check my Rating System for detailed explanations of my quick rating)
The Girl From Everywhere by Heidi Heilig
Published by: Greenwillow Books
Genre: YA Fantasy / Time-Travel
Release date: February 16th 2016
Heidi Heilig’s debut teen fantasy sweeps from modern-day New York City to nineteenth-century Hawaii to places of myth and legend. Sixteen-year-old Nix has sailed across the globe and through centuries aboard her time-traveling father’s ship. But when he gambles with her very existence, it all may be about to end. The Girl from Everywhere, the first of two books, will dazzle readers of Sabaa Tahir, Rae Carson, and Rachel Hartman.
Nix’s life began in Honolulu in 1868. Since then she has traveled to mythic Scandinavia, a land from the tales of One Thousand and One Nights, modern-day New York City, and many more places both real and imagined. As long as he has a map, Nix’s father can sail his ship, The Temptation, to any place, any time. But now he’s uncovered the one map he’s always sought—1868 Honolulu, before Nix’s mother died in childbirth. Nix’s life—her entire existence—is at stake. No one knows what will happen if her father changes the past. It could erase Nix’s future, her dreams, her adventures . . . her connection with the charming Persian thief, Kash, who’s been part of their crew for two years. If Nix helps her father reunite with the love of his life, it will cost her her own.
In The Girl from Everywhere, Heidi Heilig blends fantasy, history, and a modern sensibility with witty, fast-paced dialogue, breathless adventure, and enchanting romance.
MY THOUGHTS:
DNF at 22% (*ARC provided by publisher as an exchange for honest review*).
This is perfect example of „it’s me not you“ kind of book. I tried. I started this novel three times but I always ended up putting it away until I faced the reality and moved it to my DNF shelf. It just simply wasn’t holding my attention and I wasn’t feeling it. There was zero connection between me and narrator during those 22% I forced myself to read. (I wasn’t big fan of writing either.)
I’m not sure whether call this combination weird or fantastic but I had very hard time connecting with heroine who has no problem navigating pirate ship traveling in time and simultaneously knowing how to use cell phone and Google. If you are a fan of mish-mash genre, than this book is for you. Contemporary, magical realism, adventure, history…this book had it all in those 22% I read. Unfortunately, this combination didn’t work for me.
Until We Meet Again by Renee Collins
Genre: YA Romance / Time-Travel
Release date: November 3rd 2015
They exist in two different centuries, but their love defies time
Cassandra craves drama and adventure, so the last thing she wants is to spend her summer marooned with her mother and stepfather in a snooty Massachusetts shore town. But when a dreamy stranger shows up on their private beach claiming it's his own—and that the year is 1925—she is swept into a mystery a hundred years in the making.
As she searches for answers in the present, Cassandra discovers a truth that puts their growing love—and Lawrence's life—into jeopardy. Desperate to save him, Cassandra must find a way to change history…or risk losing Lawrence forever.
MY THOUGHTS:
DNF at 30%
I was really looking forward to reading this book because blurb appealed to me on many levels. Unfortunately, result was very unsatisfactory and even those 30% I managed to read felt like colossal waste of my time. I dare to say that it’s every reader’s nightmare to have someone like Cassandra as narrator of the book (if only there were more chapters written in Lawrence’s POV). And as soon as insta-love (and no chemistry between main protagonists) showed its ugly head, I knew that it was time to put this book down.
I didn’t like Cassandra from the get-go. Spoiled, whiny, arrogant, rude, stupid, judgmental...she was nonstop getting on my nerves. Unless you enjoy being annoyed, she is the kind of character that you truly do not want to narrate the book which you are reading.
VERDICT?
Obviously, both books were a complete failure for me. But maybe my expectations were too high so I suggest checking reviews by other bloggers before you forsake these two novels.
ARE THESE BOOKS ON YOUR TBR?
WERE YOU ABLE TO ENJOY THEM?
WERE YOU ABLE TO ENJOY THEM?
