Review Detail

An ode to the girls who want to be everything when they feel like nothing, and to all the girls who thought they'd like archaeology more without the dirt and spiders.

Margot Rhodes joins her high school’s summer archaeology excursion to Italy, hoping to uncover lost treasure like the Vase of Venus Aurelia or her own true passion (she’s tried everything, but so far nothing’s stuck). A few days later and already in over her head, she stumbles across a hidden ruin, awakens an explorer-who-was-turned-to-stone, and finds herself partnering up with a very disgruntled Van Keane, the last explorer to have seen the Vase and the owner of the journal Margot uncovered in her school’s library.

This story takes off running and never lets up. By the end of the first chapter, I was swimming in so many wonderful questions about Margot, the possibly-magical-artifacts, and how a girl who qualified for a research trip based on her ability to write fanfiction would stand her ground with second and third-generation archaeologists.

Although I generally avoid contemporary, I really enjoyed the balance of lyrical writing and modern flair. Margot’s arsenal of pop references are effortlessly casual, whether in a hotel or a collapsing temple, and it’s easy to picture her as a real person. I made a face at some of her pointed sociological remarks, but they were few and far between.

Like many adventures, it does require some questions to be set aside. Like, would there really be ancient ruins that no one has rediscovered in a hundred years? Or, is it that easy to abscond overseas and adopt a stranger into a summer study program? Maybe probably not, but we’re not here to take everything totally seriously, and the over-the-top nature of Margot and Van’s shenanigans in Italy are right in line with the treasure-hunting, dungeon-searching genre.