a firm two stars on this one.

this took me forever to read and threw me off on my goodreads challenge :(

when i heard "this book is like a scavenger hunt through time!" my instant reaction was sign me up. i love history and i love scavenger hunts! but there was less time travel than i wanted - what i really wanted was a more setting-oriented narrative, something that would have actually added, you know, history to it. i guess i wish the settings were taken advantage of, both more detailed and more significant to the story itself. also, a scavenger hunt implies more objects than one.

and the characters were pretty flat. i'd heard that there was insta-love, but that's not really how i would describe it. it did take them an almost-appropriate (for YA, at least) amount of time to "love" each other...but they didn't have any traits. they didn't know each other but only because there was nothing to know. that, also, was really boring...and since you guys know that i'm super into my characters, it pretty much cemented this book as no fun for me.

i don't think i'll read the sequel. the narrative doesn't interest me, the characters don't interest me, and the world doesn't interest me.

that being said, i didn't mind bracken's writing style (i especially liked the social justice interjections!) and i'll consider picking up her other stuff in the future.