Review: Timeless by Alexandra Monir

Title: Timeless
Author: Alexandra Monir
Publisher: Delacorte
Publication Date: January 11, 2011
Series: Timeless #1
Links: Amazon | Goodreads
Source: Random Buzzers

When tragedy strikes Michele Windsor’s world, she is forced to uproot her life and move across the country to New York City, to live with the wealthy, aristocratic grandparents she’s never met. In their old Fifth Avenue mansion filled with a century’s worth of family secrets, Michele discovers a diary that hurtles her back in time to the year 1910. There, in the midst of the glamorous Gilded Age, Michele meets the young man with striking blue eyes who has haunted her dreams all her life – a man she always wished was real, but never imagined could actually exist. And she finds herself falling for him, into an otherworldly, time-crossed romance.

Michele is soon leading a double life, struggling to balance her contemporary high school world with her escapes into the past. But when she stumbles upon a terrible discovery, she is propelled on a race through history to save the boy she loves – a quest that will determine the fate of both of their lives.

Timeless is a cute, musical, time traveling romance of a book.

The characters have potential but at times they fall flat. Michele is an interesting character, but I find it difficult to connect with her. At first, I thought that it could be because I've been reading a lot of first person, and this one is written in third. I wanted to blame it on that, but I can't. Michele just doesn't have the depth that I desire in my characters, especially for one that is supposed to be a heroine. The characterization isn't done in a way that makes me FEEL it. I see that Michele is sad, but the writing doesn't bring enough of that welling up of emotion that SHOWS me she is sad and makes me feel sad along with her, and I wish that it would. She cries, but the reader doesn't get the feelings that go along with her tears.

The plot is alright. Michele travels back in time and interacts with some of her ancestors. And she meets a cute boy while she's at it. Obviously, attempting a relationship with someone who lived a hundred years before you has its complications. The story follows Michele as she tries to juggle the past and the present, and attempts to find a solution to the fact that the boy she adores died long before she was born. Michele's travels back in time also find her aiding various relatives. These little side plots are not as interesting as I'd like them to be. They feel like filler, to me. I really wish that there had been more to these interactions, but there isn't much about them that carries any weighty significance to the plot.

I don't love Timeless. It's teetering between "meh" and "okay". It's a fairly fun, somewhat shallow story. I just can't connect to it, and I can't take much away from it, either. The thing that I like most about it is that the ending isn't served up neatly. It is the first of a series, though it probably could stand alone with it ending the way that it does. There is something that happens toward the end that I assume will drive the plot of the sequel, but I can't really guess as to what direction the second book will take. Anyway, the ideas are great but the execution is meh.