So this isn't going to be as long as expected cause I'm currently in Portugal and I have to write this oh my phone cause I didn't take my Laptop with me. So first of all this is a really good book if you like those fantasy books where love has a really important role too. The main character Etta is just a normal girl who wants to full fill her dreams of becoming a professional violin player. But of course on her first debut strange things happen and she suddenly finds herself in the past on a ship with a girl she doesn't know. When she finds out the truth about her mother and her whole family a dangerous adventure begins. She has to bring the astrolaub , an important instrument for time travelers which has been lost for years, to the old Irenwood , to save her mother. Of course the typical thing for those storys happens and she falls in love with her companion, Nicholas. Even tho it's always nearly the same things that happens in those kind of books it was written really well and quit exiting to read. The first 50 pages were still really confusing i don't know if it was because of the writing or I just didn't understand it but all in all it was a really good story and I can't wait for the second book.

<blockquote><b><i>“Society is always the same, regardless of the era. There are rules and standards, with seemingly no purpose. It's a hateful, elaborate charade, equal parts flirtation and perceived naïveté. To men we have the minds of children.”</i></b></blockquote> I was super excited to finally start this duology, and though I found the beginning a little hard to get into, I was not disappointed. Passanger is this intense treasure hunt through time, with a set of complex characters and a bit of romance and family issues thrown in the mix. I liked Bracken's writing, at times it is so poetic and beautiful but it's not overly descriptive and the reading flowed really well. Time travel is a difficult theme to write, because if can get confusing, but she did it really well, creating a set of rules that makes everything understandable but still sort of magical. Like I said before, it took me a while to get into the book, mainly because, like Etta, where thrown in this world of travelers out of nowhere, knowing next to nothing, while having this rude, bitchy guide at first to introduce us, and we have no idea where everything is leading up to until after a 100 pages or so, when we finally get an explanation as to where the story is going, plotwise. But once the adventure finally takes off, its so good! I love the dynamic between Nicholas and Etta, their partnership, how their relationship develops slowly, both unsure at first, because of their situation, Nicholas reservations, the deal with Ironwood, but surely growing into more until they finally get together. The scene in Damascus was just beautiful. Ironwood is a very unlikable and ruthless villain and almost immediatly you dislike him and want to see Etta and Nicholas triumph over him. The Thorns are a mystery, we think we know their motivations, but I want to know more about them, because I feel they were not as well developed in this book as it should - and since the ending of this book hinted we may get to see inside the group in Wayfarer, I'm excited. And Sophia...I don't know, I think she's more complex a character than simply this arrogant, bitchy, irritating character we saw at first, but I couldn't stand her. She mistreats both Etta and Nicholas for feeling superior to them because she is an Ironwood and a white girl (while being pissed because she is not Cyrus 'heir' because she is a woman), and will go over anyone in her way to achieve what she thinks it's rightfully hers. I really want for the next book to show more of her character, maybe some development or at least a new side of her, since the ending of this one made it clear the she will be traveling with Nick. Speaking of him, he's a precious cupcake that needs to be protected at all costs and I just want him to be happy. As for Etta, I liked her character, but at times she got on my nerves. I don't know, I felt that, for a girl so opinionated, modern and brave, she accepted a lot of abuse too passively, too silently, although she is described as having kind of a temper and the first scene of her after going through the first passage is her holding a kind of harpoon to the 'pirates'. I raged a lot while reading some scenes where Sophia and Cyrus especially dragged her through the mud. That, along with the slow start, took down a star in the rating of this book for me. I hope she grows more fierce in the next book after all she went through. Overall, I enjoyed this first installment a lot, and can't wait to pick up the next! 4 stars.