Nocturnal Book Reviews

Review of both Cascade and Torrent together
3.5/5
OK, the good part of this trilogy is that it's fascinating, adventurous, full of extreme danger and often almost miraculous escape from it. River of Time is rush, bold and breathtaking.

On the other hand, as long as you know that this is pretty much a teenage girl's fantasy in la-la land, you are fine.

I can't wrap my head around Gabi's stupidity and lack of instinct of self-preservation. Sure let's sneak out past Marcello's guard and save the world despite him being of this era, knowing all the risks and trying to prevent Gabi from committing a virtual suicide. The girl lacks common sense so much I wanted to smack her and smack her hard. I really don't know how she survived all her trials...

Then comes the matter of Black Death. What on Earth was THAT?! First, Luca contracts it and deteriorates way tooo fast. But wait. Next time we see him, he is miraculously cured. What?! I've no idea what happened, and it irked me to no end.

My issue with this series is that despite it being hugely entertaining, most of the problems Gabi brings on herself trying to play a superhero. Secondly, there is no consideration of the butterfly effect. You know, the whole Bettarini bunch changing the past hugely all the time? Yeah, that one.

My last problem is that most of the situations are repetitions of what already happened. If Waterfall was refreshing and unique, the rest two books were annoying and improbable. Gabi is way far from a Christian ideal. She kills and she maims, but where is her remorse? Where is her PTSD? She is just a teenage girl, but her behaviour is not adequate to what she has to go through.

So, yeah. A great read with lots and lots of flows very much like Steel by Carrie Vaughn which made pirates look like cartoonish version of the real deal.

If you want to read a really good time travel book, I highly recommend The Outlander series by Diana Gabaldon.