Ruby Red

Title: Ruby Red

Series: Precious Stone Trilogy - book 1

Author: Kerstin Gier (Anthea Bell - translator)

Rating: 4 stars

Genre: Young Adult, Science Fiction

Number of Pages: 322

Publication Date: 2011 (first published 2009)

Publisher: Square Fish

Summary: Sixteen-year-old Gwen lives with her extended - and rather eccentric - family in an exclusive London neighborhood. In spite of her ancestors' peculiar history, she's had a relatively normal life so far. The time-travelling gene that runs like a secret thread through the female half of the family is supposed to have skipped over Gwen, so she hasn't been introduced to 'the mysteries,' and can spend her time hanging out with her best friend, Lesley. It comes as an unwelcome surprise when she starts taking sudden, uncontrolled leaps into the past.

She's totally unprepared for time travel, not to mention all that comes with it: fancy clothes, archaic manners, a mysterious secret society, and Gideon, her time-traveling counterpart. He's obnoxious, a know-it-all, and possibly the best looking guy she's seen in any century...

The main thing I loved about this book was its take on time travel. I don't know about you, but I suck at physics and things like time travel and the effects that the past has on the future, has always left me infuriatingly confused! Thankfully this book managed to give some detail on how time travel worked without me wanting to throw the book across the room. Kerstin hit the amount of detail needed right on the head; simple is good!

My other main love about this book was how normal Gwen was. As much as I love it when characters are gifted with one or two extraordinary talents, I actually loved the fact that Gwen was the most average, normal teenage girl ever! She enjoys hanging out with her friends, watching movies, spending time with her slightly crazy family; the whole ability to time travel, not something she has ever thought she would have, nor particularly wanted. Although I think she may have slightly enjoyed taking her phone into the past and taking pictures for her best friend. But shhh! don't tell the crazy secret society guys!

As for the character's in this book, they were the quirky and loveable kind. Some more detail on a few of the more major characters would have been nice, but I feel like that is something that will be flushed out a bit more in the next book

This book was fun to read, and it was refreshing and unique. I did find a few points dragged a bit and I would loved to have learnt just something about this big secret in the first book, but oh well, you can't have everything. I'm really excited to pick up the second and third books of this trilogy.

I kind of wish I could read German, because I'm really curious as to how the translated version stacks up next to the original. Also this book has been made into a film, a German film, I should probably say! However, there are both English dubbed and subbed versions to found if you look hard enough.

I'm giving this book 4 stars.