WoW #3: ‘The Girl From Everywhere’

Waiting on Wednesday is a weekly event hosted by Jill @ Breaking the Spine, where book bloggers can showcase their latest anticipated reads.

This week I’m waiting on… The Girl From Everywhere by Heidi Hellig

Release date: 16 February 2016

Genre: YA

Publisher: Greenwillow Books

ISBN: 9780062380753

Pages: 464

It was the kind of August day that hinted at monsoons, and the year was 1774, though not for very much longer.

Sixteen-year-old Nix Song is a time-traveller. She, her father and their crew of time refugees travel the world aboard The Temptation, a glorious pirate ship stuffed with treasures both typical and mythical. Old maps allow Nix and her father to navigate not just to distant lands, but distant times – although a map will only take you somewhere once. And Nix’s father is only interested in one time, and one place: Honolulu 1868. A time before Nix was born, and her mother was alive. Something that puts Nix’s existence rather dangerously in question…

Nix has grown used to her father’s obsession, but only because she’s convinced it can’t work. But then a map falls into her father’s lap that changes everything. And when Nix refuses to help, her father threatens to maroon Kashmir, her only friend (and perhaps, only love) in a time where Nix will never be able to find him. And if Nix has learned one thing, it’s that losing the person you love is a torment that no one can withstand. Nix must work out what she wants, who she is, and where she really belongs before time runs out on her forever.

[From Goodreads]

I NEED THIS BOOK IMMEDIATELY. Time travelling pirates? Uh, yes please. There’s something about this concept that screams out to my soul. I’m not ashamed to admit that I am a total history nerd, and it seems like The Girl From Everywhere has a nice strong focus on the past without slipping into dull reenactments of well-known events. Hallelujah. If I read one more historical fiction novel about the Second World War, I might just fling myself off the top of a building. (Not to condemn all books focusing on that era – it’s important that we recognise the horrors of the past through art. It’s just that literature has almost over-romanticized it by now, and there are only so many ways you can approach it. But that’s a rant for another day.)

I’m extremely excited to meet some of these characters, too. Nix could easily become one of my favourite female protagonists, with her spunky attitude and fierce intellect. Not to mention that the crew on her epic ship (which I totally want to be a part of, by the way) is magnificently diverse, according to advance reviews.

Also, MAPS. The concept behind maps being able to take travellers to any time or place, but only once, is intriguing. I can’t wait to see how the author approaches it.