bookshelves of doom: Ruby Red: Love Throughout Time, #1 -- Kerstin Gier

Inadvertent time travel runs in Gwen's family. But it's her cousin, Charlotte, who is destined for greatness: She was the one born on the right day, at the right time, while Gwen's just a normal girl. (Except for the seeing ghosts thing, but hardly anyone believes her about that.)

While Charlotte's been trained in etiquette and history and horseback riding and dancing and fencing and languages and fashion and the Secrets of the Guardians, Gwen's been watching movies and gossiping and texting her best friend and skivving off the occasional class.

(You see where this is going, right?)

But, when the girls—born a day apart—turn sixteen, it's Gwen who is catapulted through time. It's Gwen who turns out to be the last time traveler in the bloodline, Gwen who is suddenly saddled with centuries of pressure, and Gwen who has to put up with her huffy, impatient, smirkypants (and yes, super attractive) time-travel partner, Gideon.

(I'm sure you see where that's going, too!)

And now it's Gwen who has to figure out who to trust and who to believe, because in the world of the Guardians, no one seems to be telling the complete truth...

Considering my general distaste for books that serve purely as an introduction to the rest of the series, I'm a bit shocked at just how much I enjoyed Ruby Red. Because, really: Hardly anything happens.

But it's the WAY in which hardly anything happens that's so much fun! Despite the Literary Historical Epic-ness of the cover art, really, this book reads more like vintage (before she started phoning it in) Meg Cabot. In other words: If you're looking for something sedate, subtle and thought-provoking, Ruby Red is not it. If you want PURE FUN, look no further.

The plot twists are easily spotted four miles away and while Gwen and Gideon go from squabbling to (SPOILER) smooching, there isn't much of a transitional period*, but it isn't the sort of book in which that matters. It's fast-paced and, in parts, really, really funny (there's a scene on the school steps that made me laugh out loud), with a large cast of Big Personality characters. Gwen's fabulous best friend is basically an outgoing version of Willow Rosenberg, who happily provides research aid and unabashedly hopes for a bit of danger. It's a HUGE TREAT to read about characters who are EXCITED about adventure, rather than being all mopey and tortured and put upon.

I often have a hard time with translations. It's quite possible that I'm imagining things, but in a lot of books, the pacing seems to be off and the prose feels stilted: Not so here. Anthea Bell's translation is so fabulous that I kept forgetting that Ruby Red was originally written in German.

So, Anthea Bell, OBE and winner of the Batchelder Award, like, 47 times, I hope you're busily translating the next two books. Because I'd like to read them. Like, RIGHT NOW. (Was that rude? I hope not. Ruby Red just made me really happy, and I'd like more, please.)

Only complaint! I like the German covers so much more. They're way cuter and far more true to the tone: