Passenger

This is a day for me!  It is Peculiar People Day!  It is a day to honor all the unique and different people in the world (which is all of us as we are all different).  The world would be very boring if we are all alike.  It is also Housplant Appreciation Day.  Is your house looking a little drab with all the holiday decorations put away?  Get a houseplant to liven things up.  There are many health benefits to having houseplants.  You can check it out here.

I just finished Alexandra Bracken’s Passenger.  Henrietta “Etta” Spencer is getting ready to give a concert (she is a violinist) at The Met in New York.  As she starts her piece she hears what she calls feedback (an awful noise).  Etta runs off stage and there is Sophia.  Sophia states she hears the noise and drags Etta off to find it.  Alice (we are never given her last name) tries to intervene (she has been Etta’s violin instructor since Etta was five), but Sophia pushes Etta through something!  A while later Etta wakes up on a ship in the middle of the sea and it is 1776.  How did she get on this ship and in this year?  Etta is disoriented and runs out onto the ship’s deck into the middle of a fight.

Nicholas Carter is a pirate (technically a legal privateer).  He has orders to take the ship Ardent and get the two female passengers on board to New York to Cyrus Ironwood.  Cyrus is the head of the Ironwood clan and he wants Etta to obtain an object that her mother, Rose has hidden.  Etta has inherited the ability to travel through special passages in time.  Etta knows nothing about time travel or the object the Ironwoods are seeking.  Nicholas will go with her to keep her safe and help her navigate through the different years (without causing too many time ripples or changing history).  Can they find the object Cyrus desires?  If they do find it, should they give it to him?  Why was this object hidden?  Will Etta ever be able to get home?  You will have to read Passenger to find out!

I found Passenger to be a difficult novel to read.  Things are not explained in the novel.  We are thrust into this world without any information.  We finally get some information in the last three quarters of the novel (way too late).  I also found the novel to be unnecessarily long.  We have pages full of thoughts and descriptions that are not needed (you can just skip over them).  I feel the novel needs a major editing (just my personal opinion) and rewriting.  The characters are not very appealing (or likeable).  Etta gets more interesting towards the end of the book (but by then most people have already quit reading).  Passenger has potential.  It has an interesting concept on time travel (and the object they are searching for), but I found the outcome disappointing.  I give Passenger 2.75 out of 5 stars.  The one thing that really turned me off was the ending.  I kept reading the book to see how it would end.  Instead of a decent ending, we are given a cliffhanger (spoiler ahead--nothing is resolved).  Passenger is overall a very frustrating book.

You can get a free sampler of Passenger on Amazon to see if you like it. I received a complimentary copy of Passenger from NetGalley in exchange for an honest review.

I am currently reading Brooklyn on Fire by Lawrence H. Levy.  It is such a grey day outside here in Florida.  Perfect weather for staying in and reading a good book.  I hope all of you have a nice, relaxing Sunday. Take care and Happy Reading!

Kris
The Avid Reader

P.S.--Do not forget about my contest for a copy of The View From Prince Street!  You have one week to enter!