The Girl from Everywhere

So there are some really strong points to this book: I thought the coming of age was really well done, with a very nuanced protagonist. I thought Nix was a very realistic teenager, who despite her challenges being very particular to the fantasy setting, dealt with them in a way and had an emotional development arc that really spoke to adolescence. I really liked the evolution of the relationship between Nix and Slate - and a paternal relationship as the central relationship to a story is new and interesting. The Hawaiian setting is gorgeous, lush and ethically gray.

I really liked the concept of the Temptation – a ship that could travel to anywhere where there was a map. I thought the idea that the past is mutable, and the “true past” that they go to is whatever the map drawer believed to be true. What does it mean for the past to be “real” versus “fantasy” and who gets to decide? I wish the rules were drawn a little more clearly (what's to stop them from drawing their own maps whenever they wanted to return somewhere?)

But the book was imperfect. They circled around the central plot again and again without bringing any new information to it and without every resolving it. Which I think I took harder from a debut novelist -- how can I trust her to resolve it in the sequel? I would have totally read a historical fantasy set in 19th century independent Hawaii, but that was not the book I was billed: I was billed time traveling tall ships. So I was disappointed that they spend way less than 10 percent of the book in any other locale at all, and I was also disappointed that the map illustrations didn't match the maps in the narrative. I also thought that the romance arcs were lackluster. People are so into Kash, but I found him very bland and generic love interest. Blake was a little better in that he actually had character development and a strong perspective, but, yeah.

I'll probably read the second book in the series, but I gave this one a lot of credit for being a debut; I'm expecting the sequel to be substantially better.