Passenger by Alexandra Bracken

Passenger by Alexandra Bracken

Rating: 4 stars

Synopsis:               New York City, Present day.
In one night, Etta Spencer is wrenched from everything she knows and loves. Thrown into an unfamiliar world, she can be certain of only one thing: she has travelled not just miles, but years from home.

                                     The Atlantic, 1776

Captain Nicholas Carter is tasked with delivering Etta to the dangerous Ironwood family. They are searching for something - a stolen object they believe only she can reclaim. But Nicholas is drawn to his mysterious passenger, and the closer he gets to her, the further he is from freedom.

                               The Edges of the World.

Together, Etta and Nicholas embark on a perilous journey across centuries and continents, piecing together clues left by a desperate thief. But as Etta plays deeper into the Ironwood's game, treacherous forces threaten to separate her not only from Nicholas, but from her path home - forever. 

Review: I'm the first one to admit, time travel in books is not something that usually appeals to me. It's why I put off reading this book for so long, despite all the hype it's received. I find it usually isn't very well thought out and is done for the sake of being done, it doesn't really play a part in the plot other than to cause problems for the characters. However, in Passenger, which is the first book in a duology, this isn't the case. In fact, the time travel in this book is probably one of the best examples I've seen in YA. The world and the process was so well thought out. The idea that you can travel through time but not day was really interesting and made a lot of sense. This worked really well within the plot because it meant that, as a reader, you weren't left reeling as Sunday became Wednesday and Wednesday then went back to Saturday for example. It was linear and therefore helped to keep you in the story.

I loved that music played a part within the story. A lot of stories give the protagonist an interest in something like music but the plot then doesn't lend itself to them using that hobby to help them. Alexandra kept Etta's knowledge of music useful throughout the book by incorporating music into finding the portals themselves, which I thought was a really unusual twist. Again, making the time travel a little more 'real' by having to find the portals and not having them lying around for anyone to find.

One of the biggest issues I have with time travel is the ability to go back to a time you've already lived through. Lets be honest, we've all wished we could go back and retake a test or live through a conversation again now we've had time to come up with some decent ideas. But, everyone also knows that going back in time and changing something, even something as small as a having a conversation with someone, causes major problems. What I loved about Passenger was that this issue was resolved, again lending itself to the time and effort that Alexandra put in when creating this world. I can handle characters doing stupid things most of the time, but with something like this where everyone knows the problems of changing the past (have these characters never watched Back to the Future??), characters trying to do this is one of my biggest peeves and I was so happy that Alexandra set a rule up to prevent this from happening.

The history in this book was really good. Not just the physical history of the time periods we visited, but also, the history of the family feuds. Having specific families who can time travel added a whole new layer to this plot because the fights have quite literally lasted centuries!

I thought Etta was a really strong protagonist. I wasn't sure she was going to be at the start but, once we got going she really came in to her own and stood up for herself, especially with Sophia. I think some of my favourite scenes were the early ones on the ship, where she starts to learn for herself what to do. I also liked that Nicholas and Etta were honest with each other. And any secrets they did keep from each other, didn't tear them apart when they came out. Most YA books do have that scene where a secret is revealed and it pushes the romantic relationship apart and it was really refreshing to have two characters do the opposite of that.

In all, I did really enjoy this book. It took me a while to get in to the story but once I did I really enjoyed it. I am glad it's only going to be a duology - I think the second book is going to be really exciting but I don't think it would work as well if it was a trilogy. Either way, a decent and well developed start to a duology series that is worth the hype it received.

Image from Amazon.co.uk - no Copyright Intended