13 Minutes

I don't really read Thrillers, but my best friend does. Every now and then, she throws one my way to read. She received 13 Minutes as an ARC from the publisher  because she read the author's adult novel, Behind her Eyes, and wrote the author to tell her how much she loved it. The problem is, 13 Minutes is YA. My friend vehemently doesn't read YA.

But she read it! She asked me to read it for a second opinion since she's not familiar with the genre. I don't read very much Teen Fiction--mostly just Fantasy--and most of the problems I had with this book are the reason.

13 Minutes is about a girl named Natasha who is found dead on a river bank. They revive her, but she was dead for (pause for dramatic effect) 13 minutes! Natasha doesn't remember how she got into the lake. She knows it wasn't a suicide attempt, so it seems to be foul play. The story is told from the third person with a mix of diary entries, police reports, and news articles thrown in.

Natasha is one of those 'most popular girls in school' type people. And not one of the super nice, friends with everyone type. The school calls her and her two best friends, Hayley and Jenny, the Barbies. They rule the school and make or break others' reputations. But when Natasha wakes up in the hospital, it isn't the Barbies she asks for; it's Becca Crisp, the childhood best friend she dropped. Becca is on the fringe of the social ladder at school. She's a bit rougher around the edges, has a 19 year old boyfriend, and only one real friend at school. So when Natasha starts paying attention to her again, it makes her feel pretty good.

Natasha knows something must have happened the night she was found, and she suspects Hayley and Jenny. They've been talking about her and hanging out with her behind her back, and they'd been fighting a lot before Natasha's accident. So she asks Becca to help her figure it out. They start hanging out together more. Becca starts ditching her other friend to see Natasha, which causes friction between them.

The whole first half of the book was painful to sit through. I tend not to read YA Fiction because I don't care about teenage mean girl drama or the romantic relationship drama or the angsty 'I feel sorry for myself but I'm hiding it by acting out' drama. And while I am aware that some teens relate to it because that's what being a teenager is, I personally, do not care to read about it. Just not my speed. So, I did not enjoy most of this book. The second half of the book, where you really get into the meat of what happened and Becca has nothing but solving this mystery on her mind--that almost made up for the first half.

So it was not a failing on the part of the author that I didn't like this book--it was just a matter of reader preference. Others may really find it compelling.

But me-I'm off to find a good fantasy!

The Novice

Not gonna lie, this was super lukewarm for me. The Novice is about Fletcher, an orphan adopted by a blacksmith. They live in a small medieval type town on the edges of the kingdom. In this world, humans are warring with orcs, and not really getting along with dwarfs or elves either.

So, you know, Lord of the Rings.

To help fight the orcs, there are soldiers called Battlemages. Battlemages have been tested for an affinity for summoning and can summon demons from another world. They capture them and use them to help them fight.

So, you know, Pokemon.

Fletcher has never been tested-he lives too far away and they don't test orphans for reasons having to do with bloodlines and the implications of people not from certain noble families having Battlemage blood. But Fletcher is given a summoning scroll out of gratitude for a kindness, and he accidentally summons a demon--something he's not supposed to be able to do.

He leaves home and travels to the main city, where there's a school for training Battlemages. There, he is able to reach out and make friends with a dwarf, an elf, and other humans, which was incredibly uncommon given the bad history between the races. But Fletcher is just generally a good guy. I mean, a really good guy. He sticks up for people, he's not racist or prejudiced, he tries to include everyone. Except maybe the nobles at the school, who are, in all fairness, absolute douches. Because, you know, entitlement.

The book wasn't bad. I just didn't get into it. You could definitely see the author was heavily inspired by other fantasy worlds. There were also strong elements of the Eragon series at work (I didn't enjoy that either). I think it's a great story for someone who is new to fantasy (or even new to reading) and hasn't seen many of these elements before, but I read A LOT of fantasy. For me, it felt like I'd read the same story before.

I will comment on a couple of things I think it handled well.

First, Fletcher wasn't the most talented Battlemage at school. I think it was cool that the author didn't write Fletcher to be more powerful than everyone else. When they were determining levels, my expectations were conpletely turned on their heels when he turned out to be just average. He gets better using technology because it's the only way he can win the competition they have to be in at the end of their year. Plus, this new tech only comes about as a result of his friendly collaboration with dwarfs. 👍

Second, I think the racism aspect was handled very well throughout this book. It's definitely iffy (but necessary!) to handle social issues in books, and if they're not done well, there's a lot of blowback. Go look at some reviews of The Black Witch by Laurie Forest. I couldn'teven finish it because it was so problematic. I think Matharu was sensitice, had an open main character, and showed the benefits of cooperation between different races (in addition to the reality of many people being against it).

Again, I can see the appeal this story had for a lot readers, and clearly tons of people love it. It just didn't thrill me 🤷‍♀️

Life After Life

See? I read things besides YA!

Life After Life is by Kate Atkinson, a bestselling author with an impressive backlist of books. When this book came out a few years ago, everyone was talking about it and I desperately wanted to read it. But then, there were other books I desperately wanted to read, and I was in school, and it was really thick, and and and. You know how it goes. Ultimately, I'm glad I waited. If I had read this when it came out and when everyone was hyped up about it, I would have been desperately disappointed.

It was OK. At first it was really confusing.  It follows Ursula Todd, a British girl born in 1910 who dies on the day she's born. You're probably wondering: wait, the main character is dead? The answer is yes and no. Her life is saved when the physician snips the cord around her throat, and she takes her first breath. As Ursula grows up, she dies numerous times. But then, time resets and she has the chance to live these moments over--to change whatever it is that killed her. The catch is, no one actually knows this is happening to her. It's like the reader is a god looking down on the world and watching another god reset this girl's life over and over to see what will happen.

Ursula only experiences very strong senses of deja vu. She knows something terrible is going to happen and that she can find a way to prevent it. This is especially poignant when World War I ends in 1918 and the family's maidservant goes out with her beau to join the crowds of people celebrating. Know what else happens in 1918? The Great Influenza. I'll let you draw your own conclusions about what happens. #nospoilers

It was interesting to read the same experiences and watch them play out differently. It was interesting to see what a huge impact something that happened when she turned 16 has on the rest of her life, and then how her life changed if that didn't happen. It was almost like a choose your own adventure story. You remember those, right?

Overall, I liked it. It was well written. It wasn't a bad story. It just wasn't riveting. It might have been more interesting if I had read it for a book club, if I was planning to discuss the different events with a group of people. But having read it on my own, it wasn't what I was expecting. And your expectations can make a huge difference in how you feel about a story. Sometimes, the there's too much hype.

Court of Fives

Aside from reading a lot of books, I also listen to a lot of audio books. Listening to books can be tricky for two reasons:

1. If the narrator is terrible, the book is terrible. Sometimes, I know the book is probably fantastic,  but I end up disliking it because I couldn't listen to the narrator. I've gotten to the point where I know when this is happening, so I just stop listening and just wait until I get the chance to read a book.

2. If the book isn't fast paced enough, I find myself zoning out and losing track of the story. I'll miss whole parts without even realizing it. So I make sure to pick books that are fairly easy to listen to. Fortunately, that is the case for most YA (my favorite!).

I love listening to books because I can do it while I'm driving, cooking, cleaning--almost anything. I can get an extra book read (and YES, it does count as reading) that I normally wouldn't be able to.

So I listened to Court of Fives by Kate Elliot. She usually writes adult Sci-fi/ Fantasy, and I've never read her adult work. I needed to read Court of Fives because I received a free ARC for book two forever ago.

So Court of Fives was...ok. It was a good idea, but I feel like nothing about it was well-developed.

The setting was a class divided fantasy world of Patrons and Commoners-no elaboration necessary. Jessamyn's father is a Patron soldier and her mother is a commoner. The two could never marry because of their country's laws, but they were completely devoted to each other. You know, until a story needed to have a conflict, at which time that devotion was conveniently forgotten. Jessamyn, our main character, behaves in public and rebels in private. She wants to run the fives, a challenging obstacle course where the winners receive fame and fortune.  The problem is, she's not supposed to be doing it. So even though she knows she can win, she has to pretend not to so that no one can find out who she is.

Ultimately, I had a few problems with this book. First, the characterization just wasn't very strong. I would think I had a handle on who a character was, and then they would act outside their character. This happened regularly throughout the book and not in a good way. It wasn't like the characters were suddenly bad and became good. They did things that didn't make sense to advance the story. It just wasn't well constructed. I don't know how to really put it into words, but the characters changed for the story's sake rather than advancing the story on their own. It felt fake. Does that make sense?

Another thing that bothered me was the sudden romance that developed between Jess and Cal, a high born Patron who also runs the fives. For much of the book, they were just helpful to each other, and then BAM, they're lovers! Not a big fan of that...

Overall, I gave it a 3 on goodreads. I'm going to read book two, The Poisoned Blade, because I have it and book one wasn't the worst thing ever. But I'm hoping Elliot was able to work out some of the kinks of the first book.