Passenger out now from Disney-Hyperion; 496 pages
Content Warning: Racism, violence
About the Author: “Alexandra Bracken was born in Phoenix, Arizona. The daughter of a Star Wars collector, she grew up going to an endless string of Star Wars conventions and toy fairs, which helped spark her imagination and a deep love of reading. After graduating high school, she attended The College of William & Mary in Virginia, where she double majored in English and History. She sold her first book, Brightly Woven, as a senior in college, and later moved to New York City to work in children’s book publishing, first as an editorial assistant, then in marketing. After six years, she took the plunge and decided to write full time. She now lives in Arizona with her tiny pup, Tennyson, in a house that’s constantly overflowing with books” (Bio from author’s website).
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Etta is a violin prodigy living in New York, and despite her stony mother, she intends to make it big. On the night of her debut performance, something strange occurs, and Etta is lurched away from the time and place she knows and thrust into an expedition to find clues left by a former time traveler who would stop at nothing to ensure a mysterious object remains safe. As a passenger on a Colonial Era pirate ship, Etta learns of a secret society of time travelers and what she must do to return home. On her journey to find clues, she is accompanied by Nicholas, who worked hard to gain respect as a privateer. Through their adventures, Nicholas is pulled back into the formidable Ironwoods family, to whom he served as a slave before finding freedom. Together, Etta and Nicholas cross centuries and find a love that can stretch across not only seas, but time itself.
In preparation for Alexandra Bracken’s visit to the Tucson Festival of Books this March, I decided to reread Passenger, and boy, I am glad I did! When this novel debuted I remember it being a little slow for my taste, but upon this reread I found the slow-burn romance to be abundantly satisfying and the places and times traveled to to be well-researched and well-realized. Etta is a great main character with her inherent intelligence, especially when tracking her mother’s clues, and her feisty wit. Etta was an enjoyable protagonist, though she falters a bit in comparison to Nicholas. Nicholas’s perspectives were a joy to revisit, not only because of his love for Etta, but for his engaging arc as an ex-slave who finds happiness upon a pirate ship. This novel has excellent representation of a biracial couple, which is a rarity in the YA genre, and handles the topic of discrimination quite deftly. The time travel and settings were also a stand-out. Bracken has a sort of old-timey eloquence when describing the various locations traveled throughout the novel and sets up the scavenger hunt-like clues to be engaging throughout. I found myself particularly enjoying the descriptions of culture and food that were prevalent to the countries and times the two characters visited, as it proved the vast amount of research needed to complete this novel. Despite my original grievances with the pacing, this novel astounded me upon rereading, with exciting locations and a magnetic love between the protagonists.
Jenica Delaney, Pine Reads Review Writer