I’m pretty sure everyone at Smart Bitch HQ is sick of hearing about Passenger by Alexandra Bracken because I’ve been talking about it incessantly. Normally I don’t dig YA very much–lots of navel gazing, lots of love triangles–but this book worked for me on all the levels. It’s a time traveling non stop action adventure tale with romance and swashbuckling. Swashes are buckled, you guys.

The heroine of this story is 17-year-old Etta Spencer, a violin prodigy. She’s been fairly sheltered (she’s spent a lot of time focused on her violin rather than on typical teenage pursuits) and has always felt a little distant from her world-traveling mom. Etta is on stage during her “soft debut” when she hears a strange screaming sound and all hell breaks loose.

Turns out Etta is part of a family of time travelers and that sound is a passage in time opening. Etta finds herself swept through and emerges on the other side in the middle of a Revolutionary War naval battle.

If you can’t tell from my summary, this book starts off at a good clip and doesn’t slow down. The pacing is superb.

So, back to 1776. Buckles are being swashed. Privateer Nicholas Carter has just taken a prize ship, the same ship Etta is on. Nick is a Traveler too–and he’s being paid to bring Etta to the nefarious Cyrus Ironwood.

There are four families who have the ability to time-travel, and the Ironwoods are the most powerful. In fact, they’ve basically wiped out or absorbed the other families. Nick isn’t officially an Ironwood. He’s the bastard son of an Ironwood and an Ironwood slave. He’s not welcome into the fold, but by bringing Etta to the family patriarch, he’s essentially winning his freedom.

Cyrus is basically holding Etta’s mom (a Linden, one of the other time-traveling families) hostage until Etta can find a powerful artifact her mother has hidden. Nick, feeling guilty, accompanies her.

Bracken does something ballsy and super cool by introducing a biracial time traveling hero. Nick is challenged and sometimes hampered by his race. It’s hard for Etta to navigate history as a woman, and it’s harder for Nick as a person of color. It adds an extra layer of challenge to their century-hopping adventures.

Their quest takes Nick and Etta from the Revolutionary War to WWII London to 17th Century Cambodia to 19th Century Paris to medieval Damascus. Along the way they, of course, start to fall in love.

I loved this book. I loved it so hard my teeth hurt. I could have used a little more historical detail in Cambodia and Damascus (Paris is kind of a pass-through), but so much action was happening there wasn’t a ton of time for it. Part of the reason this book is so unputdownable is that it never stops for the reader to catch her breath. Once Nick and Etta’s quest gets rolling, it’s a great big chase scene throughout history will no pauses.

The other thing I loved was that this book doesn’t read much like a YA book to me. I’m not being a dick and bagging on adults reading YA fiction–read what you like and be happy–but for me personally, coming of age stories don’t appeal. I’m of age. Been there, done that, got the commemorative t-shirt.

This really isn’t a coming of age story. Etta has a few moments of “this fucking sucks and I want my mom,” but she rallies and doesn’t focus so much on anything other than making it home. If I got stuck in 1776 I’d want my mom, too, and I’m 33. Etta doesn’t ponder her specialness or rail against the unfairness of what she’s been thrust into. She just gets shit done.

Nick and Etta’s romance is lovely. This book doesn’t contain first love or one-true-love themes, which I liked. In fact Nick and Etta read quite a bit like an adult couple. Both of them have had serious feelings for other people before. When they first meet they find each other attractive, but annoying. Then Nick is taken with Etta’s strength and determination to make it through her ordeal and get back to her own time. His compulsion to help her–and the reason he falls for her–isn’t because she makes his junk tingle or he feels inexplicably drawn to her. It’s because he develops a genuine affection and admiration for her. There is sex in this book but it happens behind a closed door.

The fact that Nick and Etta are an interracial couple is addressed too. When Nick first starts to notice his feelings for Etta he immediately puts himself into check because as a white woman, she’s off limits to him. Nick isn’t from the 21st century–in his world being with Etta could literally put their lives in jeopardy. For Etta, race is no barrier, and she struggles to get Nick past his fears. There’s a gut wrenching scene where Nick asks Etta if, in her time, he’d be allowed to dance with her in public.

I will warn readers about to hit that deadly one click buy button, this book has a HUGE cliffie. Epic cliffhanger, folks.  But I personally cannot wait for the sequel, Wayfarer, due out in 2017.