Gwen is 16 and lives with her mum, siblings, grandmother, aunt and cousin in an upperclass London neighborhood. Her extended family doesn't pay much attention to her, focused on her cousin, believed to be the carrier of the time-travel gene that runs through her family and sure to show up very soon in the form of an abrupt trip to somewhere in the past. But all is not as it seems. Since a mathematical formula had worked out that Gwen's real birth date was the birth date of the next time traveler, and her cousin was also born that day, Gwen's mum and (late) father secretly falsified her records to indicate Gwen was born the day before, allegedly in the hopes that she would be able to live a normal life (and since she was born at home with a midwife, no one was the wiser.
Until Gwen suddenly travels back in time. Since the trips never take more than a few hours, she pops back to the present time in one piece, but justifiably freaked out - she hasn't trained for this like her cousin has! To complicate matters further, her mother is very against her becoming too involved with a mysterious organization that is trying to achieve a great destiny...possibly with good intent and possibly more with sinister motives. Add in a cute time-traveling boy, a best friend who is a whiz with Internet research, and secrets around Gwen's birth and the last know time-traveling family member, a teenage girl who skived off after stealing one of the two chronographs (devices that lets the travelers control their wheres and whens), and there is a lot going on in this book in a very short amount of time. Oh, and Gwen can see ghosts, too.
This book was entertaining, although there is a LOT shoved in for good measure - creepy and scheming magicians from the past, untrustworthy and possibly trustworthy time-travel supporters in the present, a jealous aunt and cousin thwarted of her presumed place, some kind of weird prophecy that mixes in jewels, animals, music, AND numbers for good measure, the probability of Gwen being a secret love child, and numerous little things dropped in that might or might not be of significance in later books. It also moves really fast - boom, Gwen is a time-traveler, boom, she's time-traveling with cute but supercilious and condescending boy (official name Gideon) who thinks she's kind of a ditz and then, boom, cute boy is seeing how awesome she is, maybe falling for her and definitely kissing her.
Gwen herself is funny and pretty realistic - she isn't immediately a brave warrior, she's more concerned with sneaking her cell phone back in time so she can take a picture, is very up on celebrity gossip and fashion, and is a bit boy-crazy. It's kind of nice to see a heroine that the reader can easily identify with as not particularly heroic.
So I'll be reading the 2nd one when it comes out, just to see if they do anything with all the loose threads or if it just unravels more.
No comments:
Post a Comment