Once Was a Time

This book was amazing. It was short-which made it a super quick read. However, the story was beautifully crafted. It was so refreshing to read a story that was about a friendship, and involved no romance whatsoever. The ending was kinda cheesy, but overall it was really good.

Basically, this book is about Charlotte (Known as Lottie) and her friend Catherine (Known as kitty.) It begins in their in England during WWII. Lotttie's dad was a scientist who studied time travel, and her mom left because she couldn't stand his secretiveness. Lottie also had an older sister, whom she often argued with and wasn't on very good terms with. Lottie was an avid reader, reading under the dinner table and even taking it as far as to read during school from under her desk. Typical booknerd.

Kitty was an only child, and so her parents were all over her. They watched her all the time, so she stayed at Lottie's house most of the time. The two were really good friends, and practiced being ‘physic' with each other. She is obssessed with anagrams, and makes them about everything. She also loved swimming, which isn't show until later in the book.

The story starts out with these two girls living their day to day lives in England during the war. But then they are kidnapped, and just as they are about to be killed to convince Lottie's dad to tell the kidnappers about time travel, Lottie spots a portal and takes her chance and jumps in it.

The portal brings her to America in the year 2013, where she becomes good friends with a librarian and is fostered by foster parents whose only kid is away at college in Hawaii. The rest of the book is about her adapting to America and the new time period, along with the normal stuggles of a 10 year old girl in 5th grade. She becomes part of the popular group, and ends up bullying Jake, the guy who helped her when she first landed in America.

Whilst all this is happening, she is also grieving for Kitty who she she thinks she killed because she didn't bring her through the portal. Until she found a post card in a book from her beloved friend, and goes on the hunt to find her. This leads to her going to Jake, and pleading for forgiveness so she can follow him on his trip to Italy, where she believes she can find Kitty. There, the two become good friends and she does eventually find Kitty who is then 86 years old.

Lottie and Kitty reunite and Kitty moves back with Lottie, pretending to be her grandmother. Kitty was left in charge with Lottie's dad's job of figuring out time travel, which she did. She was the one who made the portal that saved Lottie's life at the beginning.

The novel ends with Kitty on her deathbed with Lottie by her side. It was extremely sweet, and just how the novel should have ended.

Now onto my thoughts (sorry if that summary was terrible, I'll get better I swear!)

Overall, I loved this book. The plot wasn't too complex, which is probably due to the author not sharing how exactly she percieved time travel to work in the novel. Whilst I feel like that was kind if lazy on the authors side, I think it fit with the story well. You didn't NEED to know how it worked. Just that it did, and it saved Lottie and Kitty's lives. I also loved how the time travel was from the past the the present (kinda). Not even that-but also to a completely different country! It was really interesting to read about Lottie adapting to the modern world, along with the American world with all of our weird customs. The fact that she had a ‘normal' life besides being a time traveler was also really interesting. She had to deal with bullying (being the victim AND the bully),what the true meaning of modern friendship was, and just how to be independent and be herself not what others wanted her to be. It was really cool.

I loved all of the characters in the book, and the roles they played. There are too many to name them all, but I will name my favorites. Our main character, Lottie, is a huge bookworm which makes reading in her POV so much more fun because its basically like diving into your own head. The librarian she meets is also one of my favorites, despite her scenes being limited. Lottie's parents are the typical teenage parents, which was fun. And the popular girls were a great addition, even if they did make me want to punch their faces inside out. Oh! And Jack. Can't forget Jack. I LOVED him. He is basically a male, non bookish me. He was awesome.

Basically the whole book was awesome. I recommend it to anyone who wants a quick what interesting read.