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Marking Time by April White
The Immortal Descendants, a projected young adult urban fantasy series by author April White, begins with Marking Time. Time travel and the complexity hinted at in the summary swayed the scales in favour of me because I’m not typically drawn to the young adult category. Saira, the main heroine of White’s book, is a strong, independent woman with street smarts and a healthy dose of adolescent attitude (enough to get herself in a few scrapes but not enough to turn me off).
Just as I rounded the corner, spray paint hissed. Although the graphics on the tags that two bangers in respirators were doing were passable, they were all gang signs and territorial marks. In my opinion, bangers are just fanged sheep. Anyone with such a strong yearning to belong to anything lacks the self-assurance to stand on their own.
Thoughts of maturity and acceptance of responsibility for individuals she interacted with during her time journey particularly appealed to me. Although she was more than a match for many would-be attackers in terms of physical skill, it was her courage and determination to give up her own happiness in order to defend innocents that added depth and made this story so intriguing. All in all, a great role model for its target audience.
I just ran—against the screams—without even pausing to ponder. I’m not the type of hero. Although I don’t feel it’s my responsibility to save others, I detest bullies. This completely contradicts my desire to fit in, yet there are instances when it just isn’t appropriate.
The locations in this book were amazing. With the clash of cultures in Victorian England and a connection to Jack the Ripper, how could you go wrong? Additionally, the descriptions of the modern England boarding school’s gothic labyrinth conjured up a sense of the dark and mysteries that lurked around every bend. Marking Time looks quite stunning on a large screen.
I thought the time travel aspect was accomplished effectively (which is not usually the case), the fantasy abilities given to many members of the ensemble cast were rather skillfully used, and happily the love element was not the only one driving the plot.
Marking Time by April White is a generally quite amusing escapist read, sufficiently complex to maintain the interest of mature readers despite the prose’s flaws and the presence of a few stereotypes. I will undoubtedly purchase a copy if the Immortal Descendants Series releases a second book.
About The Book
Saira Elian, a tagger who is seventeen, is capable of handling everything. Saira’s mother inexplicably vanishes, a man follows her around London, and even the aristocratic English grandmother who expelled Saira and her mother. Saira discovers she needs assistance after all when an old graffiti tag in a tube station sends her back to the 19th century and brings her face to face with Jack the Ripper.
In Victorian England, Saira meets Archer, a lovely student who helps her as much as a tall, contemporary American teen can fit in. He tells Saira about the existence of the Immortals: Time, Nature, Fate, War, and Death, and he explains that if you are a Descendant of Time, you can travel across time.
At a boarding school for Immortal Descendants, Saira makes unanticipated friends and develops a tangled romance with a young man from her past. Saira must accept her new identity while she hides from Archer a heartbreaking fact about his future that could cost him his life, but time is running out for her mother.
The Review
Marking Time
9.3 Score
This book was recommended to me as a time travel story--and it does, indeed, have a lot of time travel--but I liken the story more to Harry Potter. There are families whom each have a different supernatural power (one of which is time travel) and there is a faction that wants to keep all the bloodlines pure. Woven among all this is a great thriller plotline. I thoroughly enjoyed this book and highly recommend it to all HP fans.
PROS
- Phenomenal World Building.
- Superior Coming of Age.
- Incredible Story.
- Worthwhile Reading.
CONS
- Waste of Time.
- Amateurish Writing.
- Snarky Characters.
- Too Convenient.
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