A friend suggested I download Marking Time while it was free on Kindle. I did, though I was not super won over by her texts about how embarrassed she was to love the series. It took a while for me to get into the plot–it jumps around quite a bit–but soon I was also hooked. It’s a clever premise, as White creates a mythology that explains popular YA tropes, from time travel to vampires. And the writing is occasionally really witty and clever.
You can sense the “but,” right? But, the plot ambles or accelerates at an unwieldy pace. It tries to be too much–a boarding school book, a secret powers book, a supernatural romance book, etc. I never quite got totally hooked, although full disclosure, I am prejudiced against ebooks. They don’t seem real (even if they are actually published in print but I’ve just happened to read an e-version) and I don’t give them the same leeway I would a book with pages.
I did really like Saira and her secrets. The things that annoyed me about her at first turned out to have explanations, which I appreciated. Adam was really fun, as was Ringo. There was a lot to like about Marking Time, but as I said earlier, it was just a little too much of everything. I doubt I’ll read the sequels, but I don’t regret reading this one. Let me know if I ought to change my mind!
Book Jacket 
Seventeen-year-old tagger Saira Elian can handle anything… a mother who mysteriously disappears, a stranger who stalks her around London, and even the noble English Grandmother who kicked Saira and her mother out of the family. But when an old graffiti tag in a tube station transports Saira to the 19th Century and she comes face-to-face with Jack the Ripper, she realizes she needs help after all.
Saira meets Archer, a charming student who helps her blend in as much as a tall, modern American teen can in Victorian England. He reveals the existence of the Immortals: Time, Nature, Fate, War and Death, and explains to Saira that it is possible to move between
centuries – if you are a Descendant of Time.
Saira finds unexpected friendships at a boarding school for Immortal Descendants and a complicated love with a young man from the past. But time is running out for her mother, and Saira must embrace her new identity as she hides from Archer a devastating secret about his future that may cost him his life.
Release Date: November 2012
Want another opinion? Check out reviews at I Heart Reading and The Quiet Concert.
It Is Trish 