The Girl From Everywhere Backlist Review! // great premise, not-so-great execution

Hi friends! I wanted to catch up on a couple of backlist reviews, and this was one I wanted to put out. Although, fair warning: this was one of my first reviews, so it’s short. And not great.

Nix has spent her entire life aboard her father’s ship, sailing across the centuries, across the world, across myth and imagination.

As long as her father has a map for it, he can sail to any time, any place, real or imagined: nineteenth-century China, the land from One Thousand and One Nights, a mythic version of Africa. Along the way they have found crewmates and friends, and even a disarming thief who could come to mean much more to Nix.

But the end to it all looms closer every day.

Her father is obsessed with obtaining the one map, 1868 Honolulu, that could take him back to his lost love, Nix’s mother. Even though getting it—and going there—could erase Nix’s very existence.

For the first time, Nix is entering unknown waters. She could find herself, find her family, find her own fantastical ability, her own epic love. Or she could disappear.

I’ve had this book on my TBR list for months after seeing a Epic Reads post involving it. I mean, the premise is all about a girl who can go ANYWHERE whether real or fictional as long as there’s a map! Plus, there’s some serious danger of her not existing anymore if her father gets his way. Can’t go wrong with that, am I right? Well… you can. This book was incredibly slow. I went into the book expecting detailed and wide-spread adventures and was severely disappointed.

I loved how there was a map for each place they went to, but there were so few places and so few plot development points that it wasn’t even possible to allow the maps to redeem this book. Hellig did a fantastic job of mixing history and myth, however there were so few journeys made that I felt like the potential was wasted. Unfortunately, there were points I had to struggle through because not much was happening. It seems to me that such an amazingly imaginative premise should not lack sustenance!

On the bright side, I did enjoy the characters. Nix was an interesting heroine, not too heroic but not too whiny either. Her relationship with her father was complicated, reflecting the choices made throughout the book. That was great character development! Kashmir was a beloved character too. However, the characters were not enough to drive this story forward.

The plot did get confusing at times, and wasn’t very well explained. It drifted in circles, lasting for pages upon pages until something actually worth reading happened.

It was overly long, in my opinion, for the amount of vital or even enjoyable events that occurred throughout the book. I will attempt the second book but after trudging through this one, I’m not sure if the next one will be worth the time.

That’s it! I hope you all enjoyed this! Tell me:

Have you read this book?

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