Blog Tour & Giveaway: 13 Minutes by Sarah Pinborough

Book Blurb:

13 Minutes by Sarah Pinborough

Publisher: Flatiron Books

Release Date: October 3rd 2017

"Mean Girls for the Instagram age." --The Times (London) The New York Times bestselling author known for her thrilling twists is back:

They say you should keep your friends close and your enemies closer, but when you're a teenage girl, it's hard to tell them apart.

Natasha doesn't remember how she ended up in the icy water that night, but she does know this--it wasn't an accident, and she wasn't suicidal. Her two closest friends are acting strange-ly, and Natasha turns to Becca, the best friend she dumped years before when she got popu-lar, to help her figure out what happened.

Natasha's sure that her friends love her. But does that mean they didn't try to kill her? 13 Minutes is a psychological thriller with a killer twist from the #1 internationally bestsel-ling author Sarah Pinborough.

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My Review:

4 Out Of 5 Stars

Genre: Mystery, Suspense, Teen --

Pretty and popular Natasha was found in the frozen river, brought back after being dead for 13 minutes. She has no memory of that day or the day before that led to her being dead, but she feels like maybe she should try and figure it out. With so many possible suspects with perfectly reasonable motivations, how can she possibly figure out what happened. What do her best friends, the other Barbies, have to hide? And why is her old best friend Becca, the girl she shunned for not fitting the perfect image she wanted, hanging around again, waiting for her attention. Will the missing memories ever show up, and if they do, who will be responsible?

Wow what an interesting, unexpected ride I just took with this story. The ending, just WOW! I knew that I wanted to read this story because the synopsis was intriguing and I am always looking for new mystery books to get lost in. The story is set in high school, where a group of mean girls rule, everyone wants to be them, but somebody wants to kill them (or at least one of them). The story was a different kind of mystery, but expect a very dark read with murder, manipulation, drugs, sex, betrayal, and surprises.

I am usually really motivated by character driven books, where I have characters that I root for and really care about, but I am not really a fan of anyone in this book which was really a first for me, yet I still found the book compelling. The story was dual narrated by Becca and Natasha, alternating at chapters. I expected to like at least one of the girls, but both of them had secrets and mean behaviors that were expected of them but were a put off for me the reader. Becca was a stoner, spending much of her time high so that she could escape her feelings of loneliness, lack of self-confidence and sorrow, seeking comfort from her boyfriend and secretly wanting to belong to the girls who rejected her for not being enough. I really thought I was going to root for Becca, but she was hard to connect to due to her desperation and neediness. Well, Natasha, was a tough shell to crack. That girl lacked total compassion for almost everyone and judged everyone, be it her parents, friends, doctor by her exact standards. She was bossy, rude and pretty mean so it was hard to be invested in her well-being- to be fair, she was super interesting, but not at all a likable character by any means. It felt like she was unable to relate to anyone, and that made her very different from most characters I have read before.

I think my favorite thing in the story was the in between chapter interactions, be it the text conversations from the other Barbies, Haley and Jenny, where it hints at guilty behaviors and paranoia, notes from the Investigator on the case trying to solve what happened, snippets from the diary Natasha was instructed to keep to help her regain her memory, or case notes from the doctor that has been seeing Natasha to help her memories. Each little clue increased my curiosity and suspicion, sometimes sending me in the complete wrong direction but still add pieces to the overall plot. I wanted to solve the mystery so bad and I was convinced I had everything figured out, but alas I was wrong, so so wrong.

The plot itself was the best part of the book, with a slow build until a crazy resolution. Yes, that is all you get from me, super vague answers since this is a mystery book and I refuse to be a spoiler so all you get is that this was really good mystery with twists and turns that keep the reader guessing and an ending to make your jaw drop. I highly recommend this story to any one looking for something dark but different but with the high school mean girls flair. This was my first adventure with Sarah Pinborough and I will gladly check out more stories she wants to create.

I received this title for reviewing purposes.

Author Bio:

Sarah Pinborough is a critically acclaimed adult and YA author based in London.

Sarah was the 2009 winner of the British Fantasy Award for Best Short Story and also the 2010 and 2014 winner of the British Fantasy Award for Best Novella, and she has four times been short-listed for Best Novel. She is also a screenwriter who has written for the BBC and has several original television projects in development.

Her next novel, Behind Her Eyes, coming for Harper Fiction in the UK and Flatiron in the US(January 2017) has sold in nearly 20 territories worldwide and is a dark thriller about relationships with a kicker of a twist.

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