Review: Unraveling by Elizabeth Norris

Title: Unraveling (Unraveling #1)
Author: Elizabeth Norris
Published: April 24th 2012
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Sixteen-year-old Janelle Tenner is used to having a lot of responsibility. She balances working as a lifeguard in San Diego with an intense academic schedule. Janelle's mother is bipolar, and her dad is a workaholic FBI agent, which means Janelle also has to look out for her younger brother, Jared.

And that was before she died...and is brought back to life by Ben Michaels, a mysterious, alluring loner from her high school. When she discovers a strange clock that seems to be counting down to the earth's destruction, Janelle learns she has twenty-four days to figure out how to stop the clock and save the planet.

My thoughts, you ask? Let me think… *silence* I don’t even know what to say. I was completely blown away by this book and when it was over and a mess of emotions and in shock that I couldn’t read the sequel right away, because god knows I wanted to. Why in the world have I not read this book any sooner is beyond me! I absolutely adored this one and coming from a not so big sci-fi and physics fan, it’s a huge deal, trust me.

“Life is a fragile thing. Apparently the whole world is fragile too.” 

Unraveling follows  the life of Janelle – love her name btw – who has a bipolar Mother, her Dad is an FBI agent and he and her brother Jared are two of her favorite people in the world. I’m an anti-fan of The X-Files, but these three made that show sound so much fun. One day Janelle finds herself crossing the street to pick up her brother and ends up dead due to being hit by a truck that comes out of nowhere. She is brought back to life by Ben, a stoner from her school. Janelle wakes up in a hospital not knowing how she's alive since she's convinced she was dead. Since Ben’s not going to give the answers she’s graving for, she must seek them out by herself. Soon though, Janelle realizes that there's some really freaky stuff out there in the world and maybe, just maybe the apocalypse is really coming this time.

Janelle is a fantastic heroine. She has that fighter instinct of Katniss Everdeen, a beautiful soul of Hermione Granger, a snarky attitude of Rose Hathaway. She is a combo of every kick-ass girl I love from some of my favorite fictional worlds and I fucking loved this girl so much! A few of my favorite characters in addition to Janelle were Ben, Alex, Struz, Janelle’s Dad and Jared. These 5 men in her life are totally amazeballs and I haven’t got a single bad word to say about them. They all have character and charisma that’s so easy to relate to and the love they share for our girl is completely mind-blowing.

I think the last time cried so much was when I read The Sea of Tranquility by Katja Millay. This book really feels like a contemporary book that deals with some very heavy issues, but at the same time it’s a sci-fi mystery-thriller. It demanded my attention from the very first sentence and I couldn’t get this book out of my head at least for a week after I had finished reading it. The emotion, the story, the characters – they’re all so raw and real. I did not see all of these plot twists coming and some even left me in a really stunned state. I didn't know who to trust, who was lying and basically my mind kept screaming: "What? Why? Who? How? Where? WHATTT????" I was so overwhelmed by loving this book so much that I ordered myself a physical copy right after I finished reading Unraveling just so I can read it over and over and over and over again. It was beautiful, raw, emotional, action-packed, unexpectedly awesome and loveable. Heck yes I recommend! One of the best reads of 2013 for me.

Rating: 5 out of 5 stars

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