Oana @All Fantasy Worlds

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Ok, so this was one of the rare cases when I watched the movie before reading the book. I don’t usually do that, really. When I find out there is a movie made after a book, I always try to read the book first and keep myself from watching the movie (which, of course, would be easier and way faster). I had the books, but they were not on my list of priorities, so I just got the movie first, and didn’t regret it. Why? Because I actually got to enjoy it. If I had read the books and then watched the movie, I would’ve been greatly disappointed, because it’s so different from the books, and not in a good way.

My first thought after reading the first two books and getting into the third one was “Why is this a trilogy?” I mean, seriously… when I finished the first volume, “Ruby Red”, I was left hanging, and not because it ended in a cliffhanger (it didn’t), but because it just didn’t have any kind of conclusion. So I immediately grabbed the second book, “Sapphire Blue”, and kept reading until I had to grab “Emerald Green”. I couldn’t imagine myself reading “Ruby Red” and then having to wait for the next book to be published. The action just flowed like that, from one book to the other. I read the entire trilogy in three days. I couldn’t stop and I couldn’t bring myself to do anything else. Work, food, and life in general felt like they were in the way of the only thing I wanted to do: lie in bed and lose myself in Kerstin Gier’s world.

I can’t review each book separately because I perceived the trilogy like a huge book that I never wanted to end. So, here are the things I liked about the “Ruby Red” trilogy:

I loved Gwen’s voice. She was smart, witty, and she had no intention of following any rules. But she was not that kind of girl who would do exactly what she was told not to do just for the sake of it. Her choices made sense, and she didn’t get herself into troubles pointlessly. And I really liked the fact that even though she loved Gideon, she didn’t depend on him. Of course, some things could have been clarified really fast between them if they had just left their pride aside and communicated, but you can’t have a YA novel without a bit of drama, now could you? It didn’t bother me, though. Gwen was doing things much better on her own, anyway. I also liked Gideon, and the relationship between him and Gwen was realistic and it built up slowly and beautifully.

Of course, I loved the idea of time traveling. Who wouldn’t? I liked all the intricacies that started to make sense in the third book, and I really appreciated the fact that the story made me stop at some point and think about everything, trying to put the facts in order and understand how all the details fit in the whole picture. I would talk more about this, but I really don’t want to spoil anything.

Anyway, the most important thing is that I LOVED this trilogy, I couldn’t stop reading even though I knew it was 3 in the morning and I had work to do in a couple of hours, and I was so hooked that while reading the second book I even told myself: “Ok, I just need to finish this one, and then read the third book real fast so I can get my life back and get some work done.”