Ruby Red (1) by Kerstin Gier
And now to the second-best time travellers series I ever read – the Ruby Red trilogy, starting with Ruby Red (original Liebe geht durch alle Zeiten – Rubinrot, French Rouge Rubis) by Kerstin Gier. I read it in German - it has 343 pages. Age 13 to death, (girls). Originally published 2009.
Gwendolyn’s family’s not exactly what you’d call normal: not only does on grandaunt tell fortunes, the entire family is connected to a secret organisation for time travellers – because that ability has been handed down in their family for centuries. Gwen’s cousin, the ever-perfect Charlotte, will soon start to jump as well… as the very last of the twelve, the mysterious Ruby. Charlotte’s been prepared her entire life. So why does the boring, ghost-seeing Gwendolyn wake up in another century? Forced in a world she doesn’t want to be in, Gwen has to understand the politics of the organisation, learn how to fight, dance and talk properly and guard her heart against the other time traveller, Gideon. And she’s likely about to fail in all categories…
This book is funny, tense, emotional and wonderful! Gwenny isn't half as intelligent as Claire Denvers of The Morganville Vampires, as strong as America of The Selection (Selection), as stubborn as Clary of The Mortal Instruments (Chroniken der Unterwelt ) or as brutally honest as Em of Hourglass but she still knows how to win the readers heart. She’s adorably clumsy and just… well, normal I guess. Sure, she can see ghosts, but apart from that, she’s an absolute average girl, the kind you tend to overlook at first, but can have great fun with. I think that Gwen’s strongest suit is invoking loyalty. She has a great instinct for people and manages to make people trust and believe in her, a priceless quality that is really underestimated. Unfortunately for her, she isn’t the greatest tactician or puzzler, which means that she sometimes needs a bit to put the pieces together. But she manages. Apart from that, I like her humour and self-ironic way of seeing the world. And how she manages to make super-natural stuff appear perfectly normal: Take her ghosts, for instance.
By the way, her ghosts are so cool! That little boy’s just adorable…
Well. Gwenny usually jokes that Lesley’s her extended brain. That girl is so pragmatic it’s a bit creepy – and she never lets herself or Gwenny feel miserable, no matter the odds. Lesley’s Gwenny’s cheerleader, the one to make sense of all of her problems and to kick her in the butt if she doesn’t get it together. As you can see, she’s my type of girl. Apart from that, Les has gorgeous humour and is amazingly non-judgemental, things that make her even more to “my kind of girl” – and are features that are absolutely crucial for a friendship with Gwenny. Not that Gwenny’s scandalous, or anything, but she does jump through time and sees ghosts… and Gwenny’s family is more than strange.
The Shepard branch is actually not the problem, even though they do have Gwen. The mother is a typical, slightly stressed but loving middle aged woman, Gwen has two siblings (little boy and girl) who act like their age: enthusiastic about almost everything strange that happens at the house, hating Charlotte, trying to talk the others into stuff they don’t want (like having a pet), making fun of others, falling on their mother’s nerves and wanting to be part of a conspiracy. For no other reason than that it’s a conspiracy.
Great-Auntie Maddie’s crazy, but nice as well. I adore how the family quite calmly and (in some cases) eye-rollingly handles her visions, and how funny she is. She’s strange, but in a good way.
The rest of the family however… God, I’m sorry for Gwen! She has to put up with that stiff, stick-in-the-butt grandmother that might have forgotten to smile, in a waaay too big and cold house, but add her aunt to that?! Shit. And then, Charlotte.
You know, I’m almost sorry for that girl. Charlotte’s been trained her entire life to be a time traveller, and basically brain washed by the organisation and her mother to actually see this as a good thing. She never had real friends outside of Gideon, had to spend her entire childhood in classrooms and under the care of an over-ambitious tiger-mom and a stiff grandmother. Her dad’s been long gone. Her only friends are adults (if you can say that they are her friends), save for Gideon… whom she loves. In her school and extended family, Charlotte’s basically isolated, because everyone is jealous… and because she’s jealous of their lives, damn blasé and taught to think she’s better than everyone else – because she’s a time traveller. And now she has to find out that her entire life was a waste. She’s not a time traveller, the cousin she looked down to is. And, even worse, Gideon looks at Gwen in a way he never looked at Charlotte. If that girl wasn’t so mean to Gwen and her siblings, Lesley or basically anyone but Gideon, if she wasn’t so blasé I’d truly pity her. Because she is in a shit situation. Well.
Gideon. Funny, a bit over-confident, but he has the heart in the right place. It’s funny how he spends first so much time to be exasperated with Gwen, but after a while sees who she is. How she perfectly manages to accept the strangest situations and facts as if they are natural (while flipping out about a lot less-super-natural stuff). And then, he begins to like her. And develops a fetish for churches. He he. Still, I’d sometimes like to throw something at him. Like a cathedral. Or Charlotte. Wouldn’t know what’s worse.
Well. The jumps through time are very well done, as is the organisation, it’s members, their motivations and hierarchy. I’m especially a fan of the French woman, she’s so adorable! And how Gwen manages to wrap her round her little finger… that girl has skills.
To continue: The ideas are original and interesting, the story tense – with a good way of describing details and lots of imagination. There are no mistakes and the characters are very round as well. All in all, the book is GREAT! Even though a bit more historical background would have been nice.
In brief:
I give it a star for style, characters, plot, and the ideas plus SoGH.
Sequel: