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A review by haniah__x
Passenger by Alexandra Bracken
3.0
< 3*- just too slow
I finally managed to push through this tome!
And it was good, albeit with many issues.
This is a time-travel novel, featuring:
1) Bhutan, 1910
2) New York City, present day
3) The Atlantic, 1776
3) London, 1940
4) Angkor, 1685
5) Paris, 1880
6) Damascus, 1599
Damascus and WW2 were longer and more enjoyable, however I really would have liked more than 10 pages for Paris. :/
The writing: Alex Bracken's writing is - as usual - slow, wordy and descriptive. It does showcase her competency and is bound to impress an English teacher, for example. But as a reader, I'd rather not trudge through paragraph-long descriptions about the air, tending to clog up the story a little. It did paint beautiful pictures in my mind, though, so perhaps it's not such a negative thing. Depends on your preference - it renders the novel rather slow and I found it difficult to get through, in addition to the 500 thick pages.
Characters & romance: I admit, I don't particularly like or care about any of the characters - nothing really stands out to me - and the insta-love was irritating. The number of pages I skipped because I couldn't care less is overwhelming, honestly I'm really not a fan of Nicholas and Etta's romance. It feels so... forced. Also, the excess dialogue between the two was tiresome too - they spent 10 pages every so often just talking nonsense about what they'd done and what they were planning to do and any other boring subject. Really, quite repetitive. I don't think I've ever had a problem with dialogue, but there's a first for everything I suppose.
I feel like if Etta had a friendship with Sophia that would have been much more interesting, instead of her and Nicholas endlessly pining over each other.
Overall, this book is slow, drags through too many unnecessary words (lots could have been cut), the romance isn't great. However, I will admit that the time-traveling aspect was intriguing, and I enjoyed this, just not abundantly. If you're looking for something slow-paced, rich and original, you could give this a try, but if I could, I would tell my former self to give it a pass.
I finally managed to push through this tome!
And it was good, albeit with many issues.
This is a time-travel novel, featuring:
1) Bhutan, 1910
2) New York City, present day
3) The Atlantic, 1776
3) London, 1940
4) Angkor, 1685
5) Paris, 1880
6) Damascus, 1599
Damascus and WW2 were longer and more enjoyable, however I really would have liked more than 10 pages for Paris. :/
The writing: Alex Bracken's writing is - as usual - slow, wordy and descriptive. It does showcase her competency and is bound to impress an English teacher, for example. But as a reader, I'd rather not trudge through paragraph-long descriptions about the air, tending to clog up the story a little. It did paint beautiful pictures in my mind, though, so perhaps it's not such a negative thing. Depends on your preference - it renders the novel rather slow and I found it difficult to get through, in addition to the 500 thick pages.
Characters & romance: I admit, I don't particularly like or care about any of the characters - nothing really stands out to me - and the insta-love was irritating. The number of pages I skipped because I couldn't care less is overwhelming, honestly I'm really not a fan of Nicholas and Etta's romance. It feels so... forced. Also, the excess dialogue between the two was tiresome too - they spent 10 pages every so often just talking nonsense about what they'd done and what they were planning to do and any other boring subject. Really, quite repetitive. I don't think I've ever had a problem with dialogue, but there's a first for everything I suppose.
I feel like if Etta had a friendship with Sophia that would have been much more interesting, instead of her and Nicholas endlessly pining over each other.
Overall, this book is slow, drags through too many unnecessary words (lots could have been cut), the romance isn't great. However, I will admit that the time-traveling aspect was intriguing, and I enjoyed this, just not abundantly. If you're looking for something slow-paced, rich and original, you could give this a try, but if I could, I would tell my former self to give it a pass.