review: the girl from everywhere, by heidi heilig

THE GIRL FROM EVERYWHERE
Author: Heidi Heilig
Genre: fantasy, historical fiction, time travel
Pub Date: February 16 2016
Publisher: Greenwillow Books
Pages: 464
Source: ARC (won from a twitter giveaway)

Nix has spent her entire life aboard her father’s ship, sailing across the centuries, across the world, across myth and imagination.
As long as her father has a map for it, he can sail to any time, any place, real or imagined: nineteenth-century China, the land from One Thousand and One Nights, a mythic version of Africa. Along the way they have found crewmates and friends, and even a disarming thief who could come to mean much more to Nix. But the end to it all looms closer every day.
Her father is obsessed with obtaining the one map, 1868 Honolulu, that could take him back to his lost love, Nix’s mother. Even though getting it—and going there—could erase Nix’s very existence.
For the first time, Nix is entering unknown waters.
She could find herself, find her family, find her own fantastical ability, her own epic love. Or she could disappear. 

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this year, there seems to be a new trend of time travel novels: passenger, blackhearts, the girl from everywhere, and probably more to come. so far, the girl from everywhere is definitely my favorite.

to start off, i'd like to say that heidi did a fantastic job describing the details and different features of hawaii. there is so much more there than i could've thought (aka much more than just a little tropical island. my knowledge of hawaii is small.) i have never been, but after reading this book i'm certainly going to plan a trip soon. 

one of the many things i loved about this book was the characters. i know, i'm a real sucker for good characters and they can really make or break a book for me. the girl from everywhere had a diverse cast of characters, and this is one thing i love to see in books. (#weneedmorediversebooksinya! ;) )
i especially loved our main character, nix, and her best friend, kashmir. i appreciated the friendship they had built over the years of sailing and traveling together! kashmir was a sweet but super flirty guy, but trust me when i say he and nix are the definition of friendship goals. seriously. they depend on each other to survive, kashmir being the thief who gets the crew what they need, and nix being the one to locate whatever it is they're looking for. speaking of the crew, lets talk about slate, rotgut, and bee. each person seemed to have their own purpose to serve on the ship, which i loved! it's always awkward when there's an extra person added to the cast that doesn't really have a reason for being there. the crew works together so well on each and every mission and i couldn't imagine anyone better fit for the tasks at hand. 

time travel seems like a very difficult topic to write about, but so far every author i've read from has done a wonderful job explaining it and twisting it into a unique story (shoutout to heidi and alex!) and due to this i have found myself beginning to love books with time travel. each author has their own way of tweaking it to make it their own and to fit into their books perfectly. time travel can also be a topic that is hard to understand. however, the girl from everywhere is easy to understand. i found myself actually knowing what was going on 100% of the time (which is usually unlikely for me). i liked the fact that the whole story took place in hawaii, just in different time periods. this was probably a huge reason the girl from everywhere was easy to understand.

i honestly don't have many negative things to say about this book. i loved it! one teensy tiny thing was that this book was a tad bit slow at the beginning. there wasn't too much going on, and as the reader we didn't know much about the characters and the plot yet. a few chapters in, it starts to pick up the pace. 

there are a lot of interesting points in the book where i found myself intrigued in what was going on (not gonna name specifics because spoilers). its hard to explain action scenes like these without giving much away, but to (try) to sum it up, it is almost like finding a piece of a puzzle and going "oh! that makes sense now!" you know? like when everything starts to come together and make sense? or maybe its like when you need to come up with a plan and the plan is insane but super cool at the same time? anyway, you get the idea.

overall, i really enjoyed the girl from everywhere. it has surely made the list of my favorite 2016 debuts! i give it 5/5 stars! (i know, i've given a lot of books 5/5 stars this year but thats because they're so dang good! its been a good reading year so far!)

have you read the girl from everywhere? if so, what did you think of it? what did you rate it? let me know!