The Primroses Were Over

I was really looking forward to this, and it's quite possible my high hopes were just a little too much for any book to sustain.

The setting was interesting, certainly, and the time travel itself was pretty cool, but they were not well-supported by plot and characters, and that became a problem rather quickly for me. I kept setting this book down and then picking it back up and then setting it back down again. The idea seemed consistently better than the execution of it.

Our main character, Aralias, is just not at all my type. He's a bit too full of life to be believable without ever managing to jump off the page. It's an odd dichotomy, and I found myself annoyed every time he pranced "on screen" to say things that were ridiculous without being amusing or surprising. How someone with as much "life" in him could also feel flat is something I can't quite explain. It might be the lack of growth throughout that left this impression. He starts and ends as what he is, and what he is is rather annoying.

Clara, our other primary character, is probably more likeable, and I would have liked her better had she not the terrible taste of finding our main character worthwhile. Their banter was one of the weakest parts of the book, and I never bought their supposed chemistry--it also fell extremely flat, and they felt like they were being shoehorned into the roles of romantic partners because the book needed that, not because they were suited.

The story and the kidnapping got a little lost in the time travel shenanigans, and although I did honestly enjoy those bits, because of this it felt less like a coherent book and more like a series of escapades. In fact, it might very well make an intriguing and fun tv show, but I was not very impressed with it as a book and I'm hoping for more coherence in the next time travel story I pick up. 

This book was provided to me for free via NetGalley in exchange for an honest review.