A violin prodigy. Time travel. Romance. Rescue mission. Top that off with an author born and raised in our very own state, and there you have a combination no book lover could resist.

Alexandra Bracken’s newest novel Passenger had an interesting premise. Unfortunately, it failed to impress. I would give it 2.5 stars out of five.

Characters:

In general, I really liked the characters. Etta Spencer is a 17-year-old violin prodigy who longs to impress a detached mom. Nicholas Carter is a young African American man who just wants to be independent.

The positive: Etta was a very realistic character who made mistakes and had just the right amount of spunk. Nicholas was also a well-developed character for the most part. I really loved the dynamic between them.

The not-so-positive: Some things just didn’t add up in their character. Etta, for example, spends all her time on the violin and confesses to herself that she has zero friends. However, when she is sucked back in time to a ship bound to New York, she has no trouble making friends with the crew. Also, Nicholas was very protective, which was nice, until it started getting old. Etta is the kind of girl who can obviously take care of herself, but Nicholas gets really caught up in his role of “protector.”

Plot:

Etta Spencer devotes all her time to her violin and hoping one day her mom will be proud of her. Until one day everything goes wrong. After witnessing a fight between her mom and violin teacher, she blows her performance. All of a sudden she is thrust back in time. When she wakes up, she finds herself in the eighteen hundreds on a ship with an intriguing young captain on her way to meet the one who will decide her fate.

It had the means to be a great story. And it was, at least at the beginning. However, soon the romance started to take over. Don’t get me wrong, I love a good romance, but when a book that’s supposed to be adventure with a little bit of romance turns into a romance with a little bit of adventure, that’s when I have a problem. It just didn’t do a good job of balancing the romance and the action. There was a point when the role of the action became to build the romance. You know what I’m talking about. Almost every single YA book. When they’re getting chased and the girl gets wounded and the guy has to carry her and, despite the danger, all he can think about is the feel of her skin against his arms . . . Or when the guy almost dies and the girl just knows she can NOT live without him . . . It definitely wasn’t as bad as some YA books out there, but it was enough to get annoying.

Passenger did end on a cliffhanger, as it is the first book in a series. The second book, Wayfarer, is scheduled to come out January 2017.

Overall, I couldn’t quite say I liked Passenger. There were some parts at the beginning that I enjoyed, but not enough to bring it up to 3 stars.