Torrent by Lisa T. Bergren is about two teen girls, Gabi and Lia Betarrini, who are able to travel to fourteenth century Italy. In this book, Gabi and Lia, who have been able to control their time travel, return to modern times with their mom to save their dad from his tragic death. Back in medieval Italy, the girls have to deal with wars, imprisonment, kidnapping, and forced marriage, as well as the threat of the black plague.
(This is the third book in the River of Time series. The first book is Waterfall and the second is Cascade)
I found this book (Well, the series) to be a little cheesy. The first book was a free Kindle download, and it sounded pretty interesting, two time traveling girls? Might be good.
-I had trouble relating to the characters. They seemed a little too perfect. There just wasn't any conflict between the main characters. Not that I want a lot of arguing or anything, but a little disagreement or something would have made a big difference to me. I guess I just didn't feel very connected to them
-The black plague is talked about on the back cover of the book, making you think it's going to play a major role in the story, but it's only mentioned. I wish that plot line would have been used, it would have made for a more interesting read.
-I found it a little hard to believe that Gabi and Lia so easily gave up every modern convince to stay in the fourteenth century. I think I would be missing things like, oh, I don't know, the internet, decent shoes, and being able to wear jeans ;). They didn't seem to have much trouble giving all that up. That and the idea they so easily integrated into medieval society. But then again, things might be different if I were madly in love, which brings me to my next point...
-I really got that Gabi and Marcello were in love. I did. It was made abundantly clear. the author went a little overboard on all the romance stuff. Luckily, it is a Christian book, so the content was clean! BUT, I am not a mushy romantic, I like more conflict and suspense between characters. Like how coughRonieKendigcough writes. So maybe I'm not the best judge of that.
What I did like:
-I liked that the author wrote from first person point-of-view. So many authors write from third person, it was nice to read something a little different.
-The concept of time travel is neat, which was what interested me when I first read the summary of the book. It was different and that's what I was looking for.
-And the whole Italy and knights thing was pretty cool. Again, not what I normally read so it was good for something out of the
ordinary.
-And I really could feel the authors passion for Italy. You could tell she put a lot of research into these books when it came to Italy and that time period.
Overall, this is a good, light read. Not something you have to put a lot of thought into or stay up late reading.
This is a great series for the 13-16 year old crowd, which is what it's marketed for anyways.
