I recently finished a young adult fantasy novel that was SO fun. Let me tell you about it! ‘Stealing Infinity’ by Alyson Noël is a time traveling whirl of adventure! It comes out next month on June 28th from Entangled Publishing.

Natasha’s life is thrown off course when she’s kicked out of school and recruited into Gray Wolf Academy- a school that’s completely off the grid. What’s the deal with this place? Oh, it’s just a school for TIME TRAVELERS. That’s right, it’s called ‘tripping’ and the students learn to go back in time and bring back pieces of history. But really though, there’s something off about the students and Arther, the multimillionaire who runs the school. What’s his deal and who’s this new guy? I spy a love triangle for book 2…. 😏

When I started this book I thought it was too unbelievable and too juvenile and then I was like whatever, it’s technically at fantasy book for ages 14+. So, taking that into consideration it was pretty perfect. It was fun, full of adventure and mysterious boys. What teenager doesn’t love all 3 of those things?!

I loved all the art history talk. Oh! Also that the chapters were so short. That’s the way to my reader heart.

Thank you to @entangled_publishing and @netgalley for this advanced digital copy!

Q. If you could time travel- where would you go?

It's been a while since I've read an Alyson Noel novel, but I loved her series, The Immortals, and Laguna Cove & Cruel Summer so I was excited to dive into another book of hers!

Stealing Infinity was a fun read. The world the author built is fun and interesting, if a little too much to remember sometimes with the numerology, tarot, and historical aspects. She weaves a lot together in a short time, which can be a bit overwhelming, but overall makes for a great story!

The time-travel is really interesting, and I enjoyed what we read of her training and her dives into the past. It was a fun and unique take on time travel that I haven't really seen done yet!

Natasha was an easy protagonist to root for, and she felt very real as a reader. The other characters I felt like I didn't know enough about to truly form an opinion. Elodie is the Queen B and causes a lot of mayhem for Natasha for kind of no reason, though I'm hopeful further books helps make sense of her actions. Natasha's relationship with Braxton felt reminiscent of The Immortals in some ways, and I felt like it needed a little more substance to it to make me love them. Again, this seems like something that we'll dive into more in further books.

While I enjoyed the book and would definitely continue reading the rest in the series, I do wish this stood a little more on its own. It relies a lot on the continuation of the story rather than giving readers a good foundation to rest on.

Overall, though, I do suggest giving this a try!

LOVED this book so much and cannot wait for the next installment. Just as with her previous series, Alyson Nöel wraps up enough of the story to satisfy, but leaves you wanting to know what is going to happen next. Grey Wolf Academy is a unique locale for a private boarding school. Plus what actually is happening at the school is amazing and incredible and such a fantasy with danger and intrigue.

You can’t go wrong reading any of this author’s books, but I found this one to be just what I needed.

*3.5 stars*
Time travel, teen angst, and a hidden "boarding" school run by a billionaire? Yea, I'll sign up for that! Lol! Alyson Noel is back with a new young adult series that follows Natasha as she is swept up in a world of intrigue, mystery, and of course, time travel!

Natasha's life has been up-ended, and nothing will ever be the same. She has been whisked away to an off-the-grid school that goes a little beyond teaching your basic math and science courses. I liked Natasha as a female lead - her reactions are pretty realistic and I like that she stands up for herself and doesn't let petty drama get in the way of her standing out. The romance with Braxton kind of took me by surprise... it happened super fast and honestly... I wasn't really feeling it. It just lacked the chemistry and connection that should have been jumping off the page. There seems to be another love interest at the end of the book, however, that I am MUCH more excited to see play out... My fingers are crossed for that one because there is some serious potential for that match.

The side characters were pretty good - Elodie was your basic mean girl with daddy issues, but played the part well. There seems to be some hints toward some layers with the girl, but we'll see how her character pans out in the next book. Arthur Blackstone is a billionaire with an agenda, but his love of art shines through.

I feel like this was a good book, but a bit on the slower side. There are bursts of activity and excitement and the combination of time travel, numerology, astrology, tarot, art, and so on was very cool to read about. But I didn't get that "can't put it down" feeling. That said, I think the way this book paves the way for the second, shows great potential for the rest of the series. I think alot is going to happen in the next book and I think it's going to be much faster-paced. Looking forward to continuing the series!

Stealing Infinity is a good first installment in a series about a mysterious group of time travelers. The story follows Natasha after she is recruited to Gray Wolf Academy. Once there she finds out that her new benefactor runs a school for time travelers. She has to learn about proper etiquette and mannerisms and how to act like someone from the past.

Natasha at first is an outsider to this new group, but finds a friend in Braxton. Soon friendship turns into more as the more time she spends with him, the more she likes him. This also causes a rift between her and some of the other students.

Natasha slowly starts to build new friendships the longer she stays at Gray Wolf. She also starts to learn more about herself. However the more she learns, the more questions she has.

I liked the world building in this book. The time travel was fun and so were the parts where Natasha prepares for her trips. I’m a sucker for boarding school type settings, so this definitely met my expectations on that. There is a feeling of uneasiness when reading, where you know there is something more sinister going on but you just can’t see it yet.

My only problem with the book is that you don’t get any resolution to the prologue in this book. I felt like you’d get something on that, but it just never happened. In a way it adds to the suspense of the book.

Overall I did like this book and I’d recommend this to anyone who likes books involving time travel and mysteries.

A suspenceful,fast-paced, well thought-out and delivered plot. A wholesome main female character ready to explore the new reality she is suddenly introduced to, where time-traveling is a viable and exciting possibility. A romantic sub-plot also adds to the whole story and the mysterious and suspensful ending leaves the reader satisfied but craving for more! Need I say more? I would highly recommend this book to anyone who would enjoy a cross-over between the DaVinci Code and time-travelling.

I absolutely LOVED this book! Natasha is such a strong, smart character and I love how her special abilities seem to help her navigate this new world she’s found herself in. I was hoping to see which of these characters (or maybe we haven’t seen him yet!!) is the one responsible for her father’s death but hopefully that will come in future books. So many little things happened that have me impatiently waiting for the second book! Where is Song??? What happened to Anjou? Why did Braxton….do what he did to his travel partner? What is truly Arthur’s end game, and how far will he go to achieve it? And that ending with Mason!!!! Please get the next book/rest of the series out asap because this wait is going to be a killer!

“I’m ninety-nine percent certain I was switched at birth, and now I’m trapped in someone else’s dystopian nightmare.”

First off, that quote from Mason is priceless and the cover! Man, I'm loving the detail invested in it so darn much. I just needed to point that out before beginning. Now let's dive in!

Numerology, time travel and historical artifacts are just a few facets of the background embedded in Noël's new YA fiction/fantasy. I really enjoyed how she starts off with brief explanations of Numerology and some of the historical items that existed in real life. Watching her tie artifacts and art into the main plot was a highlight for me as a reader. Even the historical landscapes and attention to detail to the traveled eras was wonderful. Truly the highlight for me.

I realized about a quarter of the way in that while I loved the idea of the book and the settings, I wasn't connecting with the characters. I can see many readers enjoying the dynamic between Nat, Elodie and Braxton, but for me I just didn't enjoy them the way I had hoped.

The chapters are very short and it lent a sense of fast pacing to an otherwise slow moving narrative. Typically most series starters are filled with backstory and lead up to set the pacing for the rest of the books, however I never got the full sense that things were actually progressing. There is a strong start and intriguing finish that made things enjoyable, but in the end this wasn't a novel for me.

Even though this was a miss for me, there are tons of reader reviews that will tell you different. If you're into time traveling young adult reads, I would still recommend giving this a go and perusing those other reviews. Thank you, Entangled Teen, for the opportunity to read and review this novel for an honest and unbiased opinion. All thoughts are my own.

I received a copy of Stealing Infinity via NetGalley.

Natasha is recruited to Gray Wolf Academy- a place completely off grid that’s owned by tech trillionaire Arnold. This is not a typical academy. “Students” are taught to time travel and claim various items throughout history. Or so it seems. Arnold has a much bigger vision and Natasha is key.

In addition to being thrown into a whole new world and learning how to act in various historical periods, Natasha has no idea who to trust. There are so many twists that even I, the reader, am suspicious of everyone.

This is clearly book one in a series and I am definitely excited for future books because I want to know more about the habitants of Gray Wolf Academy.

On a single day Natasha’s world as she knew it ended: her father disappeared and then her mother fell apart and basically stopped functioning as an adult. For Natasha who was cute, popular, and destined for success the floor came away and she became the opposite of who she could have been. Enter Gray Wolf Academy, which promises a glistening future for Natasha’s mother and a chance at a decent future for Natasha. But at what cost? Is she free or not? And then there’s enigmatic, attractive Braxton.

Alyson Noël’s Stealing Infinity is fast paced, charming, and so very much fun as it takes on the possibilities of time travel and what it can mean in the hands of someone who may not be entirely scrupulous.

Natasha is a complex character, possessing abilities that sometimes take her by surprise and that open up a past she’s made herself forget.

Braxton as the romantic interest is appropriately charismatic and mysterious.

I loved the adventure into the past and the possibilities. And while I normally dislike cliffhangers, I am so looking forward to February and the next installment of what I hope will be many in this series.

Fun, fun, fun!

I received an ARC in exchange for an honest review.

I would like to thank NetGalley and Entangled Publishing LLC (teen) for providing me with an early e-book of this title to read and give an honest review.
I was pretty excited to get approved for this title. I love sci-fi and I LOVE time travel. And this topic is hard. The author has to be very aware of not overlapping time shifts and things not making sense. I have to say, Noel did a pretty good job with this as no real plot holes existed for me.
This is my first Noel title. I've seen her books around but had yet to pick one up and read it. I'm glad I did.
What I enjoyed:
T he plot. Good girl gone not so good Natasha has let her great life slip away to nothing. Bad grades, getting in trouble, and a general downward spiral have put her in a precarious position. The thing is, she can be good, and knows it. But chooses this awful path because she feels she's not worthy. And let's not mention she hangs with bad girl Elodie, who you know from the very start is up to no good.
But things take a turn when Natasha is whisked away to Blackstone Academy, where she learns about her secret
"power", she can time travel! Thought the nature of why the kids do it is not great.
The setting of this book, a secluded boarding school for kids who jump back in time, was very Harry Potter (Hogwarts, is, after all, secluded and unseeable to the normal person's eye).
The characters were all in stark contrast of each other. You definitely were not getting them mixed as each personality was very different. Some I liked. Some I did not. But such should be the nature of any book. Though I will say, I didn't really connect with any one character like I thought I would.
The love interest. I love a good love interest and this one had it brewing and then, BOOM, a triangle. Those are always fun.
What I did not enjoy:
The info dump on numerology and tarot cards. In all honesty, I could not follow this part of the plot. It was just too much to think about and understand.
The overall slower pace of the story. Yes, I would have liked this to go a bit faster. I did not read it as quickly as I thought I would. That was a disappointment.
The quick pace of the love interest and the stalkerish nature of how it began. I didn't feel the characters truly got to know about each other before falling head over heels. That bothered me and I would have liked that pace a bit slower. Plus I truly felt there wasn't the chemistry I wanted to feel.
Give me more time travel fun. I get there was a certain reason the characters kept going back to the same place, but when given the chance to time travel anywhere, why stunt it?
Overall, I did enjoy the story. I loved the jumps back to Versaille. I liked the details of the way people were dressed and the description of the palace.
I will continue to see where this one goes when the next book comes out, as I'm curious if the story will get better.

Stealing Infinity by Alyson Noel
My rating: 4 of 5 stars

I loved this book. I loved that there was so much more than just a great story. It was one of those books that make you think, feel and look beyond the regular world and into something much greater. I think that lovers of fantasy will be engrossed from page one and will think about this book long after they finish it.

Stealing Infinity
by Alyson Noel
YA Fantasy
NetGalley ARC

Natasha, while smart and beautiful, fell into a slump, letting her grades and self-esteem slide, but after Elodie, a smart beautiful girl befriends her, Natasha finds herself dropping even farther behind, even ditching her lifelong best friend Mason.

Then, after a major mishap, Natasha finds herself shipped off to Gray Wolf Academy, a school off the grid, run by a billionaire.

This story was supposed to be about time travel, but it didn't go anywhere! And it took its time getting there.

There was nothing going on in this book to make it interesting, only high school backstabbing, crushes, and betrayals. Sure there was the side story of what this school was supposed to be really about, but it was buried under all of the first-person ramblings of Natasha's thoughts.

If I could time travel, I wouldn't have pushed myself to finish it. Better yet, I wouldn't have requested this book.

1 Star

I loved this! A different kind of time travel story. Lots of great world building, I want to go to this school too! I can’t wait to see where the author takes this story in book two!

I don’t know if it was a me problem or a book problem, i was so excited to read this book and it took me a long time to get into it, the only reason why i finished it is because I don’t like to DNF books, maybe other people will like it tho.

This book was not for me. Sadly I had to DNF. The stories and the characters felt flat and I couldn't get the motivation to continue

As much as I don't miss school at all, I don't pass up on books set in a boarding school on top of time travel (that actually sounds much more fun than essays, though, not gonna lie). Plus I'm a glutton for pretty covers and Stealing Infinity is very very pretty. I'd totally take a poster of that.

What didn't work out for me, and ultimately led to a DNF @ 51%:
- The chapters were short and quick, easy to read. Quite frankly, I think I would've flown through this one, but the transitions between chapters just weren't it for me. There were a lot of times the chapter seemed to end when it probably could've ended a little later on, or the next chapter fell flat when it did end well (which pretty much blew off the transition). Overall it felt awkward with the transition a lot of the time.

- The characters felt one-dimensional. Most of them felt like they were the same across the board with maybe 1-2 things different; although given the entire premise of Grey Wolf Academy searching for students that won't be missed (seems ominous), I suppose that's probably a given but I figured it would be relatively similar background stories and not so much with almost no depth to them. If I got asked to name the key characters in the story in a few days and one thing I know about them, I don't think I'd be able to name them.

- The pacing was off, or more accurately, too slow. This may very well be on top of the awkward transitions between chapters, but nothing much actually happens in the 51% I did read. I personally don't mind slow pacing because oftentimes there's a focus on world-building (which I really liked the concept of Tarot cards and Numerology along with time travel) and character development instead, but the latter was lacking by a pretty long shot.

This was not the worst debut I have ever read, but it wasn't that great either. The book follows Nat, as she is forced to attend Grey Wolf Academy, a school that trains time travellers to steal relics from the past. The overall concept was interesting, but the story was more focused on teenage drama than the actual time travel, the reason I wanted to read this book. I didn't really care about the characters, they were very one dimensional with little to none character growth. The mystery portion left something to be desired; everyone kept secrets from Nat but I wasn't that invested in the story to be interested about that.

The jury is still out on whether I will be reading the next installment or not.

Nat's life has dramatically changed since her father disappeared. She no longer cares about her friends, her appearance, or her grades. After a crazy night she cannot remember, she finds herself kicked out of school and arrested for something she knows she would never do. To save herself she agrees to enroll in the Gray Wolf Academy. As a part of Nat's enrollment agreement her mother's house will be renovated, her mom will receive a brand new car and a generous monthly stipend. Who wouldn't do all they could to save their remaining struggling parent?

Nat soon discover's that Gray Wolf Academy is not all the it appears to be and her education is one she never would have received at her old school. Not to mention a mysterious young man named Baxter. Nat isn't sure who she can trust or what she can believe. As she learns more and more about her new purpose she finds old memories of her father surfacing.

I find that I cannot stop thinking about this story and where it will go in the next installment. I usually need a few days to process a book but I just need to know what will happen next at Gray Wolf Academy. Alyson Noel's Stealing Infinity is a unique twist on the time traveling genre. Her writing is clean, clear, and with purpose. The story has a slow build that kept me engaged and wondering where she would take me next. Noel created an 'edge of my seat' feeling as I wondered what the school's founder was up to and how Nat's father played a role in the storyline. Not to mention that History is one of my favorite subjects and I was excited to see the different era's and historical figures incorporated into the time travels. Nat is a well rounded, nicely developed character who has become the angsty teenager she is due to her father's disappearance and the life challenges that presented to her at such a young age. The other students at the school are questionable, Nat doesn't know who she can trust and neither did I, which to me makes for great mystery and is great writing by Noel. This story is not a stand alone and is the first in a series I am looking forward to continuing.

Wow, what a wild ride of a book! I loved the time traveling aspect and secluded school setting is so interesting. I really enjoyed the characters, especially Natasha and Braxton! I loved the romance between them but I’m also still questioning who is keeping secrets and who isn’t!?! The historical settings are really neat and the concept of the Trips is really fun. I’m hoping to learn more about Killian and what happened to him. In the next book because he seems really interesting and he’s lived in the past for who knows how long! There are still so many questions and mysteries left to be revealed and I cannot wait for book 2!