I was sent this book via Netgalley for an honest review, thank you to the publisher and Ann Brashares!
Seventeen year-old Prenna James emigrated to New York when she was twelve. But Prenna didn't come from a different country, she came from a different "time"- a future where a mosquito-borne illness has mutated into a pandemic, killing millions and leaving the world in ruins.
Prenna and the others who escaped to the present day must follow a strict set of rules: never reveal where they're from, never interfere with history, and never, ever be intimate with anyone outside their community. Prenna does as she's told, believing she can help prevent the plague that will one day ravage the Earth and take the lives of her younger brothers. But everything changes when she falls for Ethan.
She might be able to save the world...if she let's go of the one thing she's found to hold on to.
Okay so I'm not sure what to say about this book, it was an alright book I liked it but not as much as I hoped I would. The synopsis had me interested from the start but it started to fizzle out a bit. I loved the concept of time travel and a deadly disease threatening but there wasn't much development, it felt very patchy and for me had a lot of unanswered questions.
I enjoyed the relationship Prenna and Ethan had, even if it was doomed from the start. The opening chapter of Ethan seeing Prenna enter New York and him giving her his sweatshirt was adorable and at this point I was like okay that was strange and a bit creepy I wonder where this is going!
The concept that Prenna's community who had come from the future had strict rules to not be intimate with anyone was rather awful to see because I mean anyone being oppressed is horrible right. Well, good on Prenna for not following the rules but I expected something to happen when she broke this rule. To put it simply everything fell into place rather well and there weren't many obstacles to get in Prenna's way.
I wouldn't say this book is a thriller, I haven't read many thrillers but I'm pretty certain that I wouldn't put this under that genre at all. The only part that could be considered as part of a thriller was where Prenna and Ethan were supposed to intervene in a murder but they seemed rather relaxed and cool about the whole thing which was a bit alarming. It wasn't particularly scary or mysterious, I mean I think anything that came to mysterious was whether this book was leading to a sequel or not and I'm still not sure. I didn't feel that the loose ends were tied up, which was a little disappointing I'm sorry to say.
Despite this there were some good action scenes and a slice of romance. I think I got my hopes up too much in thinking this would be an "end of the world" kind of book. So I've given this book a two star rating, it wasn't terrible but it needed something to blow me away.
