Into the Dim by Janet B Taylor

When fragile, sixteen-year-old Hope Walton loses her mom to an earthquake overseas, her secluded world crumbles. Agreeing to spend the summer in Scotland, Hope discovers that her mother was more than a brilliant academic, but also a member of a secret society of time travelers. Trapped in the twelfth century in the age of Eleanor of Aquitaine, Hope has seventy-two hours to rescue her mother and get back to their own time. Along the way, her path collides with that of a mysterious boy who could be vital to her mission . . . or the key to Hope’s undoing.      Addictive, romantic, and rich with historical detail, Into the Dim is an Outlander for teens.

“All the air whooshed from my lungs as I stared into my mother’s face, woven into an object that was nearly nine hundred years old.”

I listened to this book for my book club. It had an interesting premise, a girl that travels back in time to save the mom she thought was killed in an earthquake. Well, after she ends up going to Scotland because her aunt that she never met or talked to wants her to be there. Because that makes complete sense.

But I mean I guess it's alright to make a crazy decision after going through a funeral and having an empty casket because your mother's body was never found in the rubble and debris. So while I probably wouldn't even feel like visiting some aunt that never gave me the time of day, I get why Hope did it.

I liked the premise of the book for the most part. I've never really read a time travel book before, and having this as a YA book made it even better for me. I've never read Outlander, so having this book compared to it didn't give me an incentive to read it more than what I already had. I think it's really only because of the Scotland and time-travel aspects that they have similar, but who knows? If anyone else read both of these books, please let me know.

I have to say that I do not like Hope very much. She really isn't a good protagonist. One of the main issues that I and some other reviewers have expressed is the fact that she slut shames way too much. We are in a day and age where women should not be slut shaming other women, especially when said slut shamer has no idea how these girls even behave anyway. It shouldn't matter what they wear, how big their breasts are, or what color their hair is. Why is she judging these girls solely based on their appearance? I didn't like that at all. She also just seems to be way too hard on herself for some reason, almost unnecessarily. She has some cowardice tendencies, and I honestly don't know what the push was to get her to be a little bit brave. I just didn't get it.

I think because I didn't like Hope so much, I couldn't really enjoy the rest of the book, which is sad because it could have been really good! I don't have much to say about this other than it could have been better, but it wasn't completely terrible.

Rated: 3/5 ★