Traveling Through Pages

Series: The Worldwalker Trilogy #1

Expected Publication: September 2, 2014 by Feiwel & Friends

Goodreads

Lily Proctor lives in Salem, Massachusetts, and she struggles to live her life day to day because of her severe allergies. She is seriously allergic to everything. After a humiliating incident at her first party, she wishes she could just leave this world. Well, her wish comes true.

Lily is catapulted into an alternate Salem that is ruled by a tyrannical witch named Lillian, Lily's identical other-self in this universe. This version of Lily's world is terrifying and she is overwhelmed by new experiences.

Lily goes on an unforgettable and crazy adventure. She has to figure out this new world while in the meantime everyone is after her. However, she realizes that her weaknesses in her home Salem are her strengths in this new Salem. This story mixes action, danger, and romance to make one unforgettable journey.

One of the things I love most about this book is how intricate this world is. It mixes together magic and science, but yet it almost appears medieval. I also love how in depth the explanations go with how the world works. I found it extremely fascinating and unique. Also very interesting were the parallels to our world. There are some things we have in our world that this world has never heard of, and a lot of our 'science' discoveries are explained through magic in this new Salem.

As someone who is extremely interested in science, I found this book to be very intriguing and thought-provoking.

I also enjoyed Lily's character. She's very head-strong and stubborn, but she always sticks to her character. She has her beliefs and never wavers. Sure, she makes some risky decisions, but she is put in many life-threatening situations. I definitely admired a lot of her choices. Even though she is stubborn, she is intelligent and generally thinks things through. She does make mistakes and has faults, but keeping in mind the insane situation she is put in, I think she dealt with it all very well.

I also like how the story is written. It can be confusing because we are thrown into this new world along with Lily, so she isn't much help in explaining things. However, Angelini includes some alternate POVs to help build the world and explain the workings, along with exploring some political drama. I found these very helpful and also entertaining. These different POVs also allow some character development with the characters in this new world. I love how each character has a distinct personality, even the ones who cross over from Lily's home Salem.

The romance was good for me, I like that it didn't take center stage, but it was there. I can imagine that it will definitely cause drama in the next books!

With all of that said, this book was a little overwhelming for me to read at times. There is a lot of information to take in, and some times I had to put it down so I could process everything. I think this also made it drag slightly and I couldn't completely immerse myself in it. Therefore, I could not give it a full five stars.

This book explores an alternate world that is on the brink of war and a girl who has to save it from her other self.  

I was fascinated by the odd mix of medieval and modern, magic and science, and loved learning about this world and characters. I can honestly say that I need the next book right now! The ending was the perfect kind of cliff-hanger.

*Thank you to Macmillan for sending me a review copy of this book in return for an honest review. All opinions are my own.*