Passenger

Title: Passenger
Author: Alexandra Bracken
Genre: YA Science Fiction
Pages: 486
Rating: 5 Stars
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Etta Spencer has given up everything to become a professional violinist, and with her official debut just weeks away, she won't let anything get in between her and dream. But when fate takes hold of Etta's life, she finds herself thrown into a world she never knew existed.  A world filled with rival families, legal pirates, and time travel.  

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This book was fantastic!  Time travel is such a hard topic to write about, and there are plenty of authors who have attempted the subject.  Alex Bracken has most definitely done the best job with it, as far as I've read.  She walks the reader through it slowly, not skipping or rushing through any aspects or details, and she makes it as simple as possible without it being too simple or allowing excessive paradox. With her lovely writing style and history of creating just the most lovable characters, you won't be disappointed by Alex's newest creation.

The first thing I really enjoyed about this book was simply the protagonist, Etta.  Firstly, she's a violinist.  I myself am immersed in the music world, and so I found that I was really able to connect to Etta's character right off the bat.   But even if you aren't a musician, Etta is a very relatable character.  She is sent through this epic adventure through time and history, all across the world.  Obviously, the customs, rules, and laws of the people centuries ago are different than they are now.  Since we the readers are from the same time era as Etta, we're able to understand just how she feels about the different encounters from the past, because we feel the same way.  Etta's reactions to every inconsiderate, or unusual comment or event makes us react the exact, same way.  On top of that, Etta's just a really strong, passionate female lead, and it's difficult not to love her. 

The relationships we see develop are unique and new.  Of course, you can only expect that coming from a book where our main character meets many people from many different time eras.  Seeing her interact with such a diverse group of people was captivating, interesting, and at times: hilarious.  

Passenger is really just a fun read.  Getting to go back in time with Etta is rather eye opening.  Sure, the dialogue and exact details of the scenes are most different from what really happened at the time, but it's still so exciting and fun to look right into the world- hundreds of years ago. 

So if you want a sci-fi time travel story done right, written by my favorite YA author ever, Passenger is the perfect book.  Plus, it just seems like the type of book to curl up with on a cold, winter night!