Marking Time by April White

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Title: Marking Time
Author: April White
Series: The Immortal Descendants #1
Published by: Indie
Release Date: October 30, 2012
Format: Kindle Book
Pages: 438
Genres: Young Adult, Paranormal, Science Fiction, Time Travel
Reading Challenges: Lenoreo's 2023 Backlist Reader Challenge, Lenoreo's 2023 COYER Chapter 1
Find it: Goodreads ✩ Amazon ✩ IndieBound ✩ Book Depository
My rating:

Blurb:

Seventeen-year-old tagger Saira Elian can handle anything... a mother who mysteriously disappears, a stranger who stalks her around London, and even the noble English Grandmother who kicked Saira and her mother out of the family. But when an old graffiti tag in a tube station transports Saira to the 19th Century and she comes face-to-face with Jack the Ripper, she realizes she needs help after all.

Saira meets Archer, a charming student who helps her blend in as much as a tall, modern American teen can in Victorian England. He reveals the existence of the Immortals: Time, Nature, Fate, War and Death, and explains to Saira that it is possible to move between
centuries – if you are a Descendant of Time.

Saira finds unexpected friendships at a boarding school for Immortal Descendants and a complicated love with a young man from the past. But time is running out for her mother, and Saira must embrace her new identity as she hides from Archer a devastating secret about his future that may cost him his life.

My Review:

3.5 stars — I read this in a boxed set, so didn’t have the updated 10th anniversary editions.  I will admit that I found the story to read a bit jumbled, especially in the beginning.  It feels like we’re thrown in, and then plot things just keep happening and happening, but we haven’t really had a chance to get to know Saira and settle into the book.  And that, for me, was where this book didn’t live up to my expectations.  Everyone has something that they’re drawn to in the written word, it’s why we all gravitate towards different things, and there is no such thing as a universally beloved book (though some come close).  For me that thing is ALWAYS characters.  A book can have the most spectacular plot and world building, but if I don’t connect with our main character, then there will always be something missing for me.

Saira felt very closed off to me.  I can see from other reviews that she’s very loved, but for me she was just okay.  I struggled to understand her motivations, to understand her heart.  She felt more like a vehicle for the plot than someone for me to connect with.  There were definitely moments where I would spy her underneath it all (especially the longer stay in the past), but inevitably I wanted more from her.  I wanted to know what she was feeling, how she was dealing with these changes, what she thought of some of these other characters, just…MORE.

I actually felt like I got more from some of the secondary and background characters than I did Saira.  The kids she meets at St. Brigid’s intrigue me, Sanda’s whole family line really intrigued me with very little time on the page.  I even felt like I connected more with Archer, though some still remains a mystery.  And most of all, I fell in love with Ringo (though am I the only one who thought he was like 10 for the first half of the book?).

The world is definitely intriguing, though I will admit I prefer clearer rules and definitions — those may come in future books.  Trying to understand how the time travel works is still ticking away in the back of my brain driving me crazy.  Again, things that may be further explored as the series goes on.

I’m definitely interested in the mystery and plot, and it was most definitely enough for me to want to read more.  There were bits I totally made great guesses on, and others that I totally didn’t see coming!

I really hope the pace of information slows down in future books…it felt like the plot was just wham wham wham, and I started to fall in love with the book when there was finally time to settle.  I was okay with the fast ride at the end, because that was expected, it was the beginning that had me a bit jumbled.

So yeah.  A lot to say that it wasn’t the slam dunk I was expecting, but I’m definitely still in for more.

COYER Community: I buddy read this book with Berls and Linda, and while Linda had to wait for us to catch up, Berls and I stayed fairly close and had fun trying to interpret things and make predictions.   Linda rated it 3.5 rounded down, and Berls rated it 4 stars (Linda’s review and Berls’ review).