Review: Weave A Circle Round

Read if you like: dangerous, unexpected magic, houses that have a mind of their own, and sweeping adventures through time and history.

Weave A Circle Round | Kari Maaren

Series: N/A

Genre: Young Adult/Middle Grade, Fantasy, Historical, Time Travel
Released: November 28th 2017
Pages: 336
Format: Ebook
Source: Publisher

The unexpected can move in next door

Freddy wants desperately to not be noticed. She doesn't want to be seen as different or unusual, but her step-brother Roland gets attention because he's deaf, and her little sister Mel thinks she's a private detective. All Freddy wants to do is navigate high school with as little trouble as possible.

Then someone moves into the house on Grosvenor Street. Two extremely odd someones.

Cuerva Lachance and Josiah aren't . . . normal. When they move in next door, the house begins to exhibit some decidedly strange tendencies, like not obeying the laws of physics or reality. Just as Freddy thinks she's had enough of Josiah following her around, she's plunged into an adventure millennia in the making and discovers the truth about the new neighbors.

I wasn't sure what to make of this book at first, but the mystery and the hints of magic and wrongness kept me reading - and I'm glad they did! I really enjoyed this book of strangeness and time travel magic and family, and I especially liked how Freddy, the main character, was a grumpy, contrary, angry girl who grew SO MUCH by the end. 

I liked a lot about this book - the house on Grosvenor Street, which grew rooms and lost them and filled with chairs and spider plants at random intervals, the mysterious and maybe menacing characters of Josiah (who I adore and want more stories of please!) and Cuerva Lachance, who has lived forever and has been reincarnated as all kinds of people - notably a Viking man and a cavewoman-type - and all genders. Sometimes she's a man, sometimes she's a woman - she just is, and I loved how Freddy shrugged and accepted it for what it was. Pretty cool way of teaching gender fluidity to teenagers. I liked Freddy's siblings, young Mel who's obsessed with mysteries, and deaf Roland, who is secretly a hero. But I especially loved the different time periods the book went to, and how each was different and imaginative in their own ways!

I'm really not done with these characters and their stories. More please!

4.5 stars

Review: The Girl From Everywhere

Read if you like: awesome female characters, high-stakes stories, and irresistible romances (heavy on the snark.)

The Girl From Everywhere | Heidi Heilig

Series: The Girl From Everywhere

Genre: Fantasy, Time Travel, Historical
Format: Ebook
Source: Publisher

Nix has spent her entire life aboard her father’s ship, sailing across the centuries, across the world, across myth and imagination.

As long as her father has a map for it, he can sail to any time, any place, real or imagined: nineteenth-century China, the land from One Thousand and One Nights, a mythic version of Africa. Along the way they have found crewmates and friends, and even a disarming thief who could come to mean much more to Nix.

But the end to it all looms closer every day.

Her father is obsessed with obtaining the one map, 1868 Honolulu, that could take him back to his lost love, Nix’s mother. Even though getting it—and going there—could erase Nix’s very existence.

For the first time, Nix is entering unknown waters.

She could find herself, find her family, find her own fantastical ability, her own epic love.

Or she could disappear.

Why did I take so long to read this? It's SO good! Epic, snarky characters, incredible world building, and writing that's just GORGEOUS. I fell in love with this lush, sweeping story of maps and sailing and love.

Nix is SO COOL, I love her, but Kashmir really hooked me into this book, my sarcastic thief prince. I'm still not sure about the rest of the characters, even though Slate, Nix's dad, has some WILD character development. The world and writing and imagination is where this book stands out, from Hawaii to New York to TERRACOTTA WARRIORS. Just full of awesome (but also sadness and heartbreak and beware this one, it'll sneak up on you!)

5 stars

Review: Fourth World

The Iamos Trilogy: Fourth World | Lyssa Chiavari

Published by: Snowy Wings Publishing, December 28th 2015

Genre: YA, Science Fiction, Time Travel

Pages: 338

Format: Ebook

Source: Author, via Netgalley

Life on Mars isn't all it's cracked up to be when you're Isaak Contreras. Ever since his dad disappeared two years ago, Isaak's been struggling to keep up in school, and he never seems to be able to live up to his mom's high expectations. But everything changes when he finds an ancient coin among his missing father's possessions. The coin makes him a target of both the Martian colonial government and a crazed scientist with a vendetta--and it leads him to a girl from another time named Nadin, who believes that Isaak might just hold the key to saving both their worlds. That is, if they can survive long enough to use it...

I really, really love the archaeology/geology bits of this book, and I wasn't expecting them at all. I thought it'd be a pretty typical space book (which, lets be fair, I love SO MUCH) so I was totally surprised to find all the excavation and the mystery (and the doorway/gate stuff, which made this book so much cooler!)

The first half of Fourth World is by far my favourite. I'm still not sure if I actually like the citidome parts - I was really wishing for more excavation, wanting to go back to that even though the sinister controlling forces of Iamos were really compelling and I liked Nadin's journey. I much prefer Isaak to Nadin, though (maybe why I prefer the first half...) and found it a bit hard to connect with her.

Overall, I really enjoyed this sci-fi thriller, and its inventive and creative colonisation of Mars!

Characters ★★★☆☆

Setting/world ★★★★☆

Writing ★★★★☆

Review: Wayfarer

Passenger: Wayfarer | Alexandra Bracken

Published by: Quercus Children's Books, January 12th 2017

Genre: YA, Science Fiction, Time Travel, Historical

Pages: 507

Format: Ebook

Source: Quercus, via Netgalley

All Etta Spencer wanted was to make her violin debut when she was thrust into a treacherous world where the struggle for power could alter history. After losing the one thing that would have allowed her to protect the Timeline, and the one person worth fighting for, Etta awakens alone in an unknown place and time, exposed to the threat of the two groups who would rather see her dead than succeed. When help arrives, it comes from the last person Etta ever expected - Julian Ironwood, the Grand Master's heir who has long been presumed dead, and whose dangerous alliance with a man from Etta's past could put them both at risk.

Meanwhile, Nicholas and Sophia are racing through time in order to locate Etta and the missing astrolabe with Ironwood travelers hot on their trail. They cross paths with a mercenary-for-hire, a cheeky girl named Li Min who quickly develops a flirtation with Sophia. But as the three of them attempt to evade their pursuers, Nicholas soon realises that one of his companions may have ulterior motives.

As Etta and Nicholas fight to make their way back to one another, from Imperial Russia to the Vatican catacombs, time is rapidly shifting and changing into something unrecognisable ... and might just run out on both of them.

Every bit as amazing and emotional as Passenger.

This series got even more complicated and epic and dangerous with this book, and even though it wrapped up (PERFECTLY), I really want more books just to see where it would GO. With the addition of more cities and times, and Li Min (thank you, Alexandra Bracken, for the lesbians), and the mysterious Shadows, this book reached new heights of awesome. It killed me to have Etta and Nicholas apart for so long, but every second was worth it. My favourite part of this book is Henry. He's just so sweet and a really good dad and I want to keep him. But honestly, I adored every single thing and this book made me so happy.

If you're worried this won't live up to Passenger, you really don't need to be. It's even better.

Characters ★★★★★

Setting/world ★★★★★

Writing ★★★★☆

Until We Meet Again (DNF Review)

Until We Meet Again | Renee Collins

Published by: Sourcebooks Fire, November 3rd 2015

Genre: YA, Contemporary, Historical, Time Travel

Pages: 322

Format: Ebook

Source: Sourcebooks Fire, via Netgalley

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. 

Mehh. Didn't like the characters, thought they were flat and ... I don't know, naive maybe, trusting. One of them could have been an axe murderer and they'd just be like 'you're so pretty and mysterious~~~~' so I didn't connect with them. The girl almost drowned and I wasn't bothered at all. Not invested in the least. Plus, despite the historical parts (this is dual POV apparently!!) and the "time travel" I found very little science in this science fiction in the first 30%. Seemed more contemporary, and not the kind I'm into. Just not for me.

DNF @ 32%

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The Here And Now (Review)

The Here And Now | Ann Brashares

Published by: Hodder Children's Books, January 1st 2015

Genre: YA, Science Fiction, Romance, Time Travel

Pages: 303

Format: Ebook

Source: Hodder Children's Books, via Netgalley

TIME TRAVEL AND FORBIDDEN ROMANCE FROM THE BEST SELLING AUTHOR OF THE SISTERHOOD OF THE TRAVELLING PANTS


Thrilling, exhilarating, haunting and heartbreaking, The Here and Now is a twenty-first-century take of an impossible romance. 

There are rules.
Never reveal where you’re from.Never be intimate with anyone outside the community.And never interfere with history. 
Seventeen-year-old Prenna James emigrated to New York when she was twelve. But Prenna didn't come from a different country, she came from a different time - a future where a mosquito-borne illness has mutated into a pandemic, killing millions and leaving the world in ruins. 
Prenna and the others who escaped to the present day must follow a strict set of rules. Prenna does as she's told, believing she can help prevent the plague that will one day ravage the earth and take the lives of her younger brothers. But everything changes when she falls for Ethan. 
She might be able to save the world ... if she lets go of the one thing she's found to hold on to.

This book wasn't terrible but the trouble was I just never cared about any of it at any point. I wasn't bothered about the characters, never connected to them, and because the book skips the 2 years where the main characters fall in love, the romance just felt flimsy, and I as a reader never fell for Ethan because I never read through Prenna doing the same. Another thing was this book had no real sense of urgency - there were less than 24 hours until the world went to crap, but they were out buying bathing suits and lounging on beaches and playing cards. It all felt distant, not dangerous or thrilling. But overall it's not a bad book - some parts are exciting, the time travel parts aren't bad, and I liked the whole controlling higher powers of Prenna's community thing, and kinda wish we saw more of this. That danger felt really vital and threatening at that point, until it suddenly petered off and didn't. The book went downhill from there, and concluded with a really un-fulfilling ending.

Like I said, it's not a bad book, but I wasn't impressed in the least.

Characters ★☆☆☆☆

Setting/world ★★☆☆☆

Writing ★★★☆☆

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