I'll give you the official synopsis and then let you know what I thought (super fresh thoughts, as I just finished this book about an hour ago!).
Synopsis:
"Jen Kallis never forgot the night her father vanished into a strange, white light from inside her closet. Even though no one believed her, Jen knew what she'd seen and refused to accept that her dad had abandoned her and her mom. Ten years later, Jen, now 17, remains haunted by his disappearance when, without warning, her closet door bursts open and reveals a bright white light.
Stepping through the light, she time travels to the year 2222 to a world far different from her own. Everything in Blue City is strange, with buildings that soar too high in the sky, hover cars that zoom on transparent blue streets, and robots that look just like humans.
When Jen is confronted by Asher, an attractive commander with a bad attitude who warns that her life is in danger, she convinces him to help her escape and find her father. Together they embark on a wild journey where she has to battle Asher's fierce ex-girlfriend, Rogue, for his love, and Jen discovers that there's something far bigger than her quest to find her father: the fate of the world - past, present, and future - is in her hands."
AND now for your regularly scheduled review :)
The Short Story:
If you like time travel (I do), futuristic worlds (I do), and high-action quests (I REALLY do), give Blue City a chance. This is the first in a series so it is heavy on the world-building, but once the world is established, the plot moves along at a great pace and the ending might just break you a little.
The Long Story:
I'm such a time travel nerd it's a little ridiculous. If the synopsis even implies time travel, I am ALL OVER THAT. Now that I've already given you the official synopsis, I don't need to tell you much (or anything really) about the plot, so I'll just talk about how I felt about it (read: good. I felt quite good about it!).
I really enjoyed the characters in this book. It seemed to take awhile for them to really take shape for me, but when they did it helped me get into the book more and the story was more real for me. Also, Lark. When you read this book, let's geek out about how STINKIN' CUTE this kid is. Love him.
The world building was excellent!! The world is fascinating and entertaining and I could really picture the setting and wanted more than a little bit to visit. The world building did take a lot of the book and, at some points, made the plot slow down a little bit, but it did not really affect my enjoyment of the book.
The pacing was also great and I didn't ever get to a part where I wanted to skim and just get to the next good part. They were all good parts!
The romance was a little insta-lovey so if that is something that bugs you, maybe try another book... but I am completely 100% happy with instalove in books. Yep, I said it. I like it just fine!
My one critique about this book is the beginning. That sounds mean because of how general it is, but it felt like the author needed to get into her groove writing this book before I was able to get into it. The writing improved as the book went on, but the beginning was a little hard to get through. Once Jen gets to Blue City, the book goes from there in awesome directions and I enjoyed reading it!
I will likely pick up the sequel whenever it comes out! The end of this book was like WHOA WHAT BANG POW SHOOT WHAT YES NO YES. So.
I give this book a confident 4/5 stars!
Check out Charlay Marie's website and the Happy Lil Book Tours site for more upcoming tours! Also find me on Instagram (@the.storied.shelf) where the tour continues!
Happy reading!
