Ruby Red (Ruby Red - Trilogy) (original 2009; edition 2011)

There were times when I became a little confused with this book. This story tells of time-traveling families and at times the family relationships seemed a little tangled. The mystery is not solved within this book and requires reading the next installment of the trilogy to discover more. ( )

I absolutely adored this book. It has everything I enjoy in teen lit: intrigue, love, strong background story and character development, angst, and a bonus time travel element =) I can not wait for the second in the series coming out next Spring!
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2,5 étoiles, en fait. Les demi-étoiles me manquent, je crois. J'ai aimé l'utilisation du personnage historique, j'aime l'idée mais il ne se passe franchement pas grand chose dans le roman, selon moi. ( )

You always know a book is good when you get to the end and are outraged to find the next book doesn’t get released until OCTOBER. While I did find some of the translation to be sticky and stiff, on the whole I thought it was an exciting and funny time-travel book.

The story arcs were interesting ones and I’m excited to see where they all end up leading. As I said before, I really liked the Big Mystery of who this society is and what they’re trying to do – I have my guesses, but honestly have no clue where that’s going. It doesn’t help that there are all kinds of mixed messages, brainwashing and secrets being kept from our lovely protag.

I normally really struggle with translated books. They always seem to lack the spark I want or, usually, the dialogue seems stiff. And I did notice this with Ruby Red, specifically during the info-dumps and when a sarcastic/teenage moment dialogue section was going on. I think, for the most part, it can be really difficult to capture those moments in translation.

It does speak wonders to both Gier and the translator, Bell, that it wasn’t enough to put me off. By the end of the book I was captivated by the mysteries that were unfolding. I also really, really liked Gwen and her friendship with Lesley. While I thought the interactions between the two suffered a lot in translation, the root of the friendship was spot on for me: you tell your best friend everything and she totally helps out as much as possible.

Was it a little over the top? Probably. But it worked for me. ( )

This is not my favorite kind of story to read but I found this one quite engaging and enjoyable. ( )