A Tale of Two Centuries by Rachel Harris (Review)

Genre:	Young Adult, Romance
Publication.Date	August 6, 2013
Pages:	320
Published By:	Entangled Teen
Website	Rachel Harris
	A Tale of Two Centuries on Goodreads
My review copy:	Review copy provided by the publisher in exchange for an honest review.

Where to get:

Alessandra D’Angeli is in need of an adventure. Tired of her sixteenth-century life in Italy and homesick for her time-traveling cousin, Cat, who visited her for a magical week and dazzled her with tales of the future, Alessandra is lost. Until the stars hear her plea.

One mystical spell later, Alessandra appears on Cat’s Beverly Hills doorstep five hundred years in the future. Surrounded by confusing gadgets, scary transportation, and scandalous clothing, Less is hesitant to live the life of a twenty-first century teen…until she meets the infuriating—and infuriatingly handsome—surfer Austin Michaels. Austin challenges everything she believes in…and introduces her to a world filled with possibility.

With the clock ticking, Less knows she must live every moment of her modern life while she still can. But how will she return to the drab life of her past when the future is what holds everything she’s come to love?

(Goodreads)

"Baby, you're not the one who needs to change, and definitely not for a chickenshit like me. You're perfect the way you are, and I'm an asshole for not realizing it sooner."

With a determined nod, he takes two brusque steps in the direction of the exit. Unfortunately, as he does, the pocket of his jeans catches on a rack of California-inspired souvenirs, sending a shower of overpriced goodies to the floor. Shooting the woman manning the counter an apologetic glance, he stops to replace a few on the stand. Then, popping back to his feet, he flees the shop without another look back. My gaze widens in delight.

Austin Michaels is flustered.

And he's flustered because of me.

Austin slaps hands with Lucas in a manly sort of greeting. "Though I ain't gonna lie, another hour with her all to myself wouldn't have sucked."

I had a great time reading My Super Sweet Sixteenth Century. It was cute and fun, and the perfect book to get me trying reads that are more historical instead of my normal stuff. So I obviously had high expectations for the sequel to such a great book. I was somewhat worried about being able to relate to the main character this time around, since she's from the sixteenth century, but I was also excited to see where this story would go, since it has such a compelling premise. Unsurprisingly, I ended up loving this book even more than I adored the first. 

I loved Less. Relating to her turned out to be such an easy thing to do--she was just a simple girl who wanted to follow her dreams and be happy, as opposed to living the life everyone expected her to live in her time. She was kind and so clueless in the cutest way, at first. She went through some awesome growth throughout the story, and even though I liked her the whole time, my level of liking definitely went up by the time the book was over. 

Austin was not what I expected. At all. And that is a very, very good thing. For some reason, I'd pictured him as a cute little nice boy before I read the book. Then I actually started reading it, and he turned out to be a sarcastic bad-ish boy who ended up to be so sweet. It's not a secret that I adore my bad boys in books, especially the ones that have a soft spot only for the MC. And that was Austin, pretty much. He was nice, he was protective, and I wanted to spend loads and loads of time with him. He definitely made me blush. ;)

The romance in this novel exceeded my expectations, big time. Since Less is from the sixteenth century, what I'd imagined the romance to be like was completely watered down. HA. In the actual book, the romance is way more, and way sweeter, than I ever could have imagined. I kind of want to slap my expectation across the face for not being higher than they were on this front. Because seriously. I fell in love with Austin pretty much the first time we met him, and that was even before he started being the protective and kindhearted person he became after growing closer to Less. I APPROVE OF ALL OF THE ROMANCE. 

Rachel Harris' writing was amazing, yet again. She strings words together in such a fabulous way, the whole book literally flew right by. Literally. I made it to the end of the book and flipped the page, and honestly said "AWWWW" because there wasn't anymore left to read. I wish so hard that Austin and Less' could never ever end. But alas, it must. Sigh. Along with the flew-right-by quality, Harris also did a great job of portraying Less as a main character I could actually see being from the sixteenth century. She didn't use contractions, she was suitably baffled by modern-day things and situations, and she was just so old-fashioned. But she still adapted to modern timed quite well, too, which I also thought was perfect. 

Overall, Rachel Harris has written such an engaging, sweet novel that I loved every moment of reading. Austin and Less were characters that I positively adored, and their story was adorably magnificent. I truly miss these characters already, and I look forward to seeing as much of them as I can in My Not So Super Sweet Life!