Ruby Red

 Originally published in Germany, Ruby Red is a book about modern time travelers, which is something I wouldn't have expected coming from this front cover. 

Gwen lives in a family of time travelers. Not everyone can do it and everyone is waiting for Charlotte, Gwen's cousin, to pop out of time at any moment. What's not expected is when Gwen suddenly finds herself on her own street corner in the early 1900's instead of the early 2000s she pops back to her own time quickly, but it's not supposed to be her that's the time traveler. Charlotte is the one who did all the studying on curtsies and dates of fires and earthquakes, not Gwen. Charlotte is the one who everyone says is perfect for this job, not Gwen. Charlotte is the one everyone is expecting, not Gwen. And everyone lets her know that. Now Gwen is in the middle of a very old, secretive society who still believe that girls are good for nothing except in the kitchen and making babies, as if they don't have a head on their shoulders and brains between their ears. And an 18 Century duke is most interested in Gwen and whatever magic she possesses for his own uses. 

Time travel isn't what I was expected from this book at all. Fellow librarians had suggested I read it ages ago, and it's only now gotten high up enough on the "To Be Read" pile that I was actually able to look at it, or hear it at any rate. I do appreciate the boundaries that are put in place fairly early on when it comes to time travel. I think that if there aren't some form of boundaries, stories get a little too wishy-washy and there are more loopholes than should be "allowed." 

I also think Kerstin Gier did a good job at giving us the information we as readers needed without info-dumping too much on us. "Show don't tell" was well done, for the most part. There are many facets to this story that could make it extremely complicated, what with ghosts and time travel and secret societies, but it's done clearly over all that we don't get too bogged down and are lost. 

The characters are thought out well. There are a bunch of them who seem a little unneeded (particularly kids from school) at this point, though I'm unsure if they will be "needed" farther on into the story. Gwen and Leslie, Charlotte and Gideon, the Count and Mr. George, and Gwen's grandmother and aunt, and even some of the side-side characters were well developed and seem to be their own people. I think the people are what carry this story along the most as they seem naturally like real people. Obviously time traveling and figuring out secrets pushes the plot along, but the story is pushed by the people in it. 

The only thing I have a problem with is the climax. The ending didn't even seem like an ending to me. I was expecting the audiobook to go on much longer and have more at steak than it did--maybe I'm to use to "Sander-lanches" where the endings are grand and have such high steaks that this one fell flat for me. 

EDIT: After reading the other books, I think if they had been one big story instead of being split into three it would have worked better story-wise. Though for marketing purposes and the fact that they are YA books might have meant that they needed to be a trilogy instead of just a larger volume, which would have been more fitting. 

Key's to the Demon Prison

 Slow in reviews it seems... 

My son and I finished this back in the beginning of April. As the final book in the Fablehaven series by Brandon Mull, we enjoyed the somewhat ribbon tied ending. 

Kendra and Seth go to another hidden sanctuary in hopes of getting the last artifact to stop the Sphinx's schemes of opening the demon prison. The get there and find that The Evening Star is already there and are ready to bite their heals. Finding the last artifact and getting out prove extremely difficult. Seth and others get captured with Kendra and very few actually escaping. Seth, while in prison, makes new acquaintances and makes a deal with the Sphinx, while Kendra and others make a plans for a jail break. But when Seth gets out and the others become captured, thing get more complicated when Seth makes another deal with a demon and finds just how poorly those can end. Now with more demons on the loose, with new allies yet still in prison, and the list of true keys to the demon prison dying Seth, Kendra, and their comrades need to find means of stopping armies of demons from taking over the world. 

There was so much going on with this book. In looking back, there was so much jumping around from place to place that it if you weren't paying enough attention you could get lost. But I think, because it was the culmination of everything it was fitting. I do find it interesting how many final books (in series) end with a treasure hunt. Where people have to run around like crazy in order to stop the big bad because they don't have all the things they need yet. It ends up becoming a treasure hunt more than anything else--I'm looking at you HP. I while it works gathering up these odds and ends, it does get a little crazy. Also then to have the big bad finished off "fairly easily" and by two kids is kinda odd -- I get it's young YA and they went through a lot to get there, but still. 

I enjoyed the character progression over all for Kendra and Seth, though Seth had much more than Kendra did--hers I felt was lacking. I liked at the end of the book how there were questions from the author about how different Seth was in the beginning (opening windows during a solstice) to now (still getting bamboozled by a demon). He still makes mistakes, but owns up to them; and how these mistakes and his reasoning behind them changed over the course of the series. I do think it would have been nice to have Kendra need to abruptly learn new things and change for the better, but I honestly can't think of a when she did. She seems to stay the same throughout the whole series. 

I liked being able to see the different sanctuaries and fairy shrines and other important places that we get to travel. Brandon Mull has an interesting imagination to come up with some of the crazy traps and strange situations that he's able to create in the story. From Australia to Turkey to Norway. Teleportation helps a lot in order to do that. 

My son was happy with the ending and letting the world of Fablehaven chill for a bit. It was a long time reading these books. Now we're off to other worlds and adventures, but we'll probably not be too far away from Mull's other works in the future.