The Girl from Everywhere (The Girl from Everywhere, #1) in Hype or Like Friday

Dec 20, 2016 Danielle (Life of a Literary Nerd) rated it really liked it

Shelves: favorites, cover-envy, poc-main-character, historical

4.5 Stars

For some reason I have a very distinct memory of seeing this in B&N last summer and and thinking the cover was beautiful. The fact that I haven’t read it until now is a travesty. The characters are vibrant, the world is vivid, and the adventure is mesmerizing. The Girl from Everywhere delivers a compelling story of fate, adventure, and choice as we follow Nix through time and fantasy as she moves toward her own destiny.

Things I Liked
This book had some of the best characters I’ve e ...more

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Jul 28, 2015 Cody Roecker rated it really liked it

"Sometimes fate makes choices for us"

I'd like to begin by apologizing for this mess of a review because it is unorganized and gushy, and crazy, and you have been warned.

I had this book for 4 months before I finally got to the book and picked it up... and immediately I was kicking myself in my butt, pulling my hair out, screaming at myself because I should have started it so much sooner.

The story begins so beautifully and we quickly gain a glimpse into Nix's world, her relationship with her fat ...more

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Feb 10, 2016 Dani ❤️ Perspective of a Writer rated it it was ok

Shelves: fiction-young-adult, series-book-1, g-r-dragons, g-t-contemporary, g-t-historical, reviewed, g-r-mythology, g-a-paranormal-powers, imo-neat-premise, g-c-asian

Nix has lived on her captain father, Slate's ship, The Temptation, her whole life as he has tried and failed to return to 1868 Honolulu to save her mother, dead in child birth. Navigating, as the map-propelled time traveling is called in this book, is more an art than a science. An hand-drawn, navigating virgin, time sensitive map is needed to guide Slate's confident way through the foggy mists that make up the navigating ability. Another day and another map of Honolulu. This time they are drawn Nix has lived on her captain father, Slate's ship, The Temptation, her whole life as he has tried and failed to return to 1868 Honolulu to save her mother, dead in child birth. Navigating, as the map-propelled time traveling is called in this book, is more an art than a science. An hand-drawn, navigating virgin, time sensitive map is needed to guide Slate's confident way through the foggy mists that make up the navigating ability. Another day and another map of Honolulu. This time they are drawn into a plot using a legitimate 1868 Honolulu map as bait. Here she meets Blake, an artistic boy who actually draws her away from her shipmate best friend, Kashmir.

I loved this premise!! Time traveling never makes sense but the map being the anchor really makes sense to me. Because it is all about the map, the place doesn't even need to have really existed. So story book settings and places of legend are up for grabs, you just need a map. Many restrictions are put upon the maps but they all seemed rather vague to me. For example, it needs to be as detailed as possible so it should take a lot of time to draw, no quick sketch here. If you've ever looked at historical maps, many were just quick jottings. While Slate and Nix have no end to the maps they can try, I find it highly doubtful there are so many with as much detail as supposedly was needed. Also, just because people are blood doesn't mean they inherit each others abilities! So I found it highly unlikely Nix could navigate just because her dad could... I also didn't understand why Slate didn't understand that he could never return to the moment his wife died. There were many, many ways around this fact and with the way he and Nix believed in these maps it would have been cake for them to go back to a time previous to his arrival there and warn he and Nix's mom, especially as they knew so much about navigating!! This was a HUGE hole in the fabric of the navigating premise. The whole navigating idea was forced into certain places to fit what the author was aiming for rather than the ability making sense and dictating the events of the story...

I really hated Nix. I hated her whining about Slate. I hated her constant lament about dying for her mom. My eyes rolled every time she talked about leaving her father. If she was going to leave she'd have done it before!! And she was so borriiing!! I didn't understand what Kashmir or Blake saw in her. I had no belief that she could navigate. Her father literally fell into navigating... why couldn't she do it with a full knowledge of it if she had the ability? She could have figured it out at any time, she just needed to make a little effort!! In the end I felt like neither boy should be saddled with this selfish wench! I know there is a push to make "real" and "modern" women characters but Nix is the worst of both!

I love me some melting pot... so I should love this part of the book, right? I mean Kashmir is Persian and there is the African Bee and Bee's deceased wife Ayen and Rotgut the old monk, as well as an old opium dealer, Joss, who is Chinese, plus Nix herself is half-Chinese. Except for Joss who needed to be Chinese and Kashmir whose Persian ancestry was literally part of his character and charm I didn't feel any of this melting pot. It just read like limp cheese. Contrast cultural ideas and identities, it doesn't have to be overt but it should feel like an immediate part of who the character is!

I didn't like the love triangle. It was classic in every way. Neither relationship with Nix was differentiated from the other except that Blake had a more traditional view of men and women while Kashmir understood that Nix had to be persuaded, she'd never do anything just for the sake of decorum or society. I hated that they were both "best friends" to Nix. There was no need for both boys. Merge them into one, it gives more weight to Nix wanting to leave. Also since a ship isn't necessary to navigate there is no reason Nix couldn't just walk out with a map like she always wanted. If you want two boys, then develop a reason for two boys, make them different. Think about love triangles and how you can set that troupe on its ear. Troupes are stereotypical for a reason, just give us a reason to want to experience your love triangle!

Loved the baby water dragon! It gave my review 1 whole star even though it was never used in the course of the story... when you create a little detail like this, great, but along with it needs to be a reason it is present in the story. It doesn't have to be that it opened the door in ancient china... it could simply have been a friend when both boys were mad at her, but Nix got it and it wasn't revisited again. (Which made me really sad!)

But I HATE heists!! And at the end of the day this is a ho-hum cookie cutter heist. The author tried to combine the lore of ancient China with the legends of Honolulu. Everything came out a bit muddled though. It just nothing was as cool or as interesting as what I could imagine when I set my mind to thinking of alternate options. In the end I just didn't care. I didn't care about who Nix picked, whether her Dad and Mom reunited or stayed with her. Much of the story made little to no sense or was just down right boring. With a slew of rewrites and more brainstorming up different ideas this premise had so much potential.

BOTTOM LINE: Unrealized potential in the premise. ...more

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