Emerald Green by Kerstin Gier

Summary (from Goodreads):

Gwen has a destiny to fulfill, but no one will tell her what it is. She’s only recently learned that she is the Ruby, the final member of the time-traveling Circle of Twelve, and since then nothing has been going right. She suspects the founder of the Circle, Count Saint-German, is up to something nefarious, but nobody will believe her. And she’s just learned that her charming time-traveling partner, Gideon, has probably been using her all along.

This stunning conclusion picks up where Sapphire Blue left off, reaching new heights of intrigue and romance as Gwen finally uncovers the secrets of the time-traveling society and learns her fate.

Review:

I’ve had so much fun reading this series. This book was a little hard to read because I knew it was the last one, and I kind of kept postponing finishing it –just because I wasn’t ready for it to be over. On the plus side, this book is a lot thicker than the other two (447 pages!). I just love all the sarcasm. I love the characters (particularly the sassy best friend and the comedic gargoyle). And it’s hard saying goodbye to of it.

Book 2 ended with a bit of tears for the main character. And I wish I could say everything gets cleared up with Gideon right away, but I can’t. Gwen has a lot of tough stuff to get through in regards to him, but she becomes so much stronger because of it. The way she knows that there are more important things in life than boys is just so wonderful. And for every moment she had to see him, and think he’d only been using her was just so, so spot on for teen relationships. Nothing is worse than dating someone and then having to see them all the time post break up…Not that I’m saying things don’t work out…I’m just saying the scenes that were hard for Gwen were just so spot-on.

Add this to now having a very “illegal” object in her possession, a bigger mystery brought on by her grandfather, and an even crazier relationship with her cousin Charlotte, and Gwen just doesn’t seem to have much going easy for her. She has to hide something really important from her family. And she soon learns some crazy family secrets that were hidden from her. We finally learn the real reason Gwen’s mom lied about Gwen and her birthday. We also learn why Lucy and Paul did what they did.

The kids all figure out what the prophecies were talking about (with much digging on her friend’s end). And apparently the secret time traveling society believes that when everyone’s blood is added to their machine, they will discover something that can help solve all of the world’s illness and disease. But what they don’t realize, that Gwen soon learns, is that all of their combined blood will cure illness in just one person and not the world. Also, for that one person to be granted eternal life, another time traveler has to be killed (and guess who it is!).

Also, a couple of characters go through some seriously insane (superhero-type) changes. There’s gun wounds, poison, high school parties gone wrong, training, heartbreak, family drama, family dinners, and romance. We finally get to see the ball that Gwen visited briefly in book 1 (to see her future self kissing Gideon passionately). Gwen gets her chance to help her ghost friend, but learns that’s it’s a lot harder to do than she thought. And we also got to see why Gideon was mad at Gwen for knocking him unconscious in book 2.

There’s a lot of answers in this one. There’s also just so much hilarity. I absolutely love Gwen’s crazy family, and there was definitely more moments with them that I was grateful for. I wasn’t expecting certain things to happen the way they did. I did predict a few things, but I was pleasantly surprised by others. I loved the race for time. I loved how close the kids bonded. I loved seeing Charlotte in a different (comical) light. I loved how strongly Gwen’s family believed in her and how willing they were to hide things from Charlotte for her. And I loved Gideon more in this one than in any of the others (for various reasons). And I love watching Gideon and Gwen argue and learn from each other.

The one thing that nagged me a bit, were the time jumps and skipped scenes. Sometimes the story would lead up to something (like a particular time traveling moment), and then with no warning you were back in Gwen’s school in current time, and you’re like, “ I don’t get to see this scene?” The author did sometimes summarize these scenes she skipped. But a summary is almost worse than skipping it completely. And sometimes I found myself re-reading scenes and thinking I skipped pages because scenes didn’t always transition smoothly. This was a little confusing considering stuff would jump around in different time periods.

All in all though, I thought this was a great conclusion to a remarkable series. The characters were wonderful. This book was about family (of all kinds), about the best of friendships, about love, and about growing up. The history, the wardrobe changes, the balls, and the mystery kept my focus for all three books. While the writing did skip around a bit, particularly at the end, I did think things ended surprisingly smoothly. I give this a 9/10. If you like time travel books, books with strong/sassy main characters, books with two bickering love interests that you just want to work, and books with a good amount of family, you’d love this.