author: Kerstin Gier
published: January 5th 2010
pages: 357
my rating: 5 out of 5 stars
Warning: this review may contain spoilers for ruby red (the first book)
Gwen’s life has been a rollercoaster since she discovered she was the Ruby, the final member of the secret time-traveling Circle of Twelve. In between searching through history for the other time-travelers and asking for a bit of their blood (gross!), she’s been trying to figure out what all the mysteries and prophecies surrounding the Circle really mean.
At least Gwen has plenty of help. Her best friend Lesley follows every lead diligently on the Internet. James the ghost teaches Gwen how to fit in at an eighteenth century party. And Xemerius, the gargoyle demon who has been following Gwen since he caught her kissing Gideon in a church, offers advice on everything. Oh, yes. And of course there is Gideon, the Diamond. One minute he’s very warm indeed; the next he’s freezing cold. Gwen’s not sure what’s going on there, but she’s pretty much destined to find out.
This was a reread for me and exactly like the other times I read it, I really loved this book. I also read this book in German since that's it's original language.
If you don't like slightly corny books you might not enjoy this as much. There is lots of relationship drama and also a lot of romance. The main characters also behave a bit childish at times but for some reason all those things don't change anything about how much I love this series. It's a really light read and even though it has a considerable length I managed to read it in two days.
Gwen is such a great character. She is incredibly relatable, makes lots of mistakes, is sort of clumsy, overshadowed by her cousin Charlotte and really funny. And even though she says and does some really stupid things she is also really witty and smart (in her own way).
What I really love in this series is the friendships in it. Lots of books only have a romantic relationship but Gwen spends almost all her free time with her best friend Leslie. They help each other out, Leslie tries to help Gwen as much as possible, even though she too has no idea what's going on and, of course, she helps Gwen through all her relationship problems. Their relationship is really realistic and so great to read about.
Apart from Leslie, Gwen also has some ghost/demon friends, since she has the ability to see and hear them. Xemerius, a new character introduced in this book, is maybe even funnier than Gwen and also just really cute. He has something witty to say about everything and everyone and he's just hilarious.
And then, of course, there's Gideon. Even though he is a complete douchebag lots of the time, I still like him and he does have his moments. It's obvious that he cares about Gwen but then again his actions completely contradict that. His mood is unpredictable and not only Gwen has problems understanding him, I had too.
Another aspect that makes this book so great is that there's time travel and a secret society involved. Since the book is narrated from Gwen's point of view most of the things going on are a mystery to her and the reader. But in this book a lot of those questions get answered but there are also lots of new questions forming.
I think way to little people have read this series, so just give it a chance, I promise you you won't be disappointed.
Movie Review
I read this book for the BookTube-A-Thon Challenge: read and watch a book to movie adaptation. So I decided to share my thoughts about the movie as well.
The first movie already wasn't as good as the book but that's often the case and I still liked the movie a lot, so I didn't have a problem with it. I expected the second movie to be similar but I ended up not liking this movie that much.
First of all, can we just talk about Xemerius for a second? He looks and sounds nothing like the way I imagined him and even though I am aware that no one can satisfy everyone with their interpretation of a character but I think lots of people agree with me when I say he just wasn't really that well made. I had a lot of issues of the way he was portrayed, like the overuse of him spitting water and also him turning invisible.
I already said that the book is a bit corny but the movie is much worse. Not only is it really corny it's also cringeworthy in more than one scene which annoyed me a lot.
The actors also weren't the best but they where good enough most of the time. And they changed so many things that where perfectly fine in the book and made them into okay scenes in the movie.
That being said I didn't hate this movie. If I hadn't watched it right after reading the book, I might've enjoyed it more but this way I was really aware of every scene that was great in the book but just fine in the movie.
I still think it's a enjoyable movie because there where lots of moments that I really loved but I couldn't oversee the not so great parts.
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