Thursday, July 14, 2011

Book Review | Ruby Red By Kerstin Geer


I read a review on this book a while back, and I loved the cover so much that when I saw it at Wal-Mart a few weeks ago, I finally had to buy it.

Ruby Red is a fun story about a girl named Gweneth Shepherd; born into the Montrose family--a family that has kept a secret for centuries.  The secret is a special gene that allows it's carrier to travel through time.

For the first three chapters, Gwen is convinced, since it's been that way her entire life, that her perfect cousin, Charlotte is the family gene carrier, but after a trip back in time, it's obvious Gwen is the actual carrier, and suddenly finds herself in the middle of something that's been happening for centuries.  To make matters worse, Gwen hasn't been prepared a bit for what her new situation will require her to do, unlike Charlotte, whose been expecting it her entire life.

I've never really been into time-travel books, but this one was particularly fun, because I am into physics, and there is a bit of an Issac Newton-esque feel to the story that is really sophisticated.  I also liked the whole mythology behind the time travel and tying it into Alchemy.  Very cool!  It was all fun and mysterious.

The only problems I had with this book were 1) because it was originally written in German, it felt like a lot of stuff got lost in translation.  And 2) I felt like the book ended in a strange place.  It was almost like Ruby Red, and it's two sequels Sapphire Blue and Emerald Green were originally all meant to be one novel, but got chopped up into three separate books for length and economical purposes.  Consequently, the ending was very abrupt, and somewhat unsatisfying to me.

That being said, however, I will be reading the sequels, because I liked the book well enough that I need to know the rest of the story.  All in all, I'd consider jumping on the time travel train, if I were you.

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