The Pirate Episode (Shattered Worlds Boxset)

Cami has been in love with Joel ever since he was a crossing guard for the kindergartners when he was in 7th grade. She was teased for liking him, but it soon passed as he grew up. Now she is in high school, and he is her biology teacher. She knows that she will never be able to get into a relationship with him, but then something strange happens. She drinks water from a bottle in his room, and now she is in the middle of the revolutionary war. On the ship on the ocean where she lands, the captain looks almost exactly like Joel.

Cami needs to blend into this new world, which means using her AP US History knowledge to her advantage and acting like a woman of the times. However this proves more difficult than she first thought, as she starts to notice all of the differences in culture and the world from then and now. Joel is left by himself in the real world, until he accidentally cuts himself and touches the water, effectively dragging him to the Revolutionary Period. Now they must both fight to return home without changing anything that happens in the past.

I enjoyed this time traveling fairytale storyline. Cami was a smart girl whom had take AP courses throughout high school and was able to handle herself easily when thrown into the new time period. She did not even seem to be unnecessarily stubborn when forced to change her outfit and her life to fit the culture and traditions of these times. Joel is a pretty basic character, I didn’t feel that there was much to him, but he did give Cami a bit more flavor so I could stand the parts of the novel that were strictly in his point of view. I didn’t even mind the blatant romance from beginning to end in an adventure novel. The only thing that I truly disliked in this novel was the ending. Supposedly, this is the first book in a series, but this feels more like a prequel. The ending feels rushed and incomplete. Due to this and Joel’s lack of complete-ness, I found  myself rushing through the beginning and then trudging to the end. However, it did end fairly quickly once I felt that it was being rushed, so I did not have to suffer through that much poor writing. Altogether, I feel that if the next novel was less rushed at the end and developed the characters a bit more, that I would definitely enjoy this series.

Overall Rating: 2.5/5