2016 book 36

Janet B. Taylor's Into the Dim
You guys know I LOVE time travel books, and I really WANTED to love this one. But I didn't. It centers on a teenage girl--kinda sickly and frail, but smart, with a photographic memory--whose mother died in an earthquake a year earlier--but she's convinced that her mother DIDN'T die, and in fact, she's right, because her mother is TRAPPED IN THE PAST and only she can save her!!!! Also there are EVIL time travelers, too! And all that actually makes sense, as far as these things go, and so she goes trekking off to the Middle Ages and chills with Eleanor of Aquitane, and meets a helpful Jewish girl (I appreciated the accurate historical look at anti-Jewish sentiment during this period) and all sorts of other things happen, it's all very exciting (it's also all VERY rapey, which is probably also historically accurate, but like, I could have done with less of it). Too bad things bog down with STUPID ROMANCE and the hints of A STUPID LOVE TRIANGLE. YA books, why you gotta do me like that. Who has time for romance when you're running for your lives in the freaking PAST? Plus it feels like every other YA romance/possible love triangle that's ever been written. I am way past over it. Anyway, this is the start of a series, and if you're into that sort of thing, it's pretty well-written. I am, clearly, not really into that sort of thing. B/B-.

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A review copy was provided by the publisher. This book will be released on Tuesday.