Book Review - Unraveling

Unraveling 

Author: Elizabeth Norris 

Series: Unraveling #1

Genres: Paranormal, Romance | Young Adult

Release Date: 24th April 2012
Publishers: Balzer + Bray

No. Pages: 464

Source: Borrowed

Rating: 

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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..

When it comes to Unraveling, I had just been looking for something quick and easy to read. Don't get me wrong, I've had it for a long time and thought the summary sounded good, sadly when I read it I got just that, a quick and easy ready that didn't wow me at all.

Janelle, the main character, is working her last day at the beach, its also the last day of summer before she goes back to school. Everything seems to be going fine, she's with her boyfriend, they haven't had an incident in the water (she's a lifeguard) and she's making plans with her friends, until while leaving to pick her brother up she is hit by by a truck and brought back to life (a little bit Twilight-esk move if you ask me) by the school's loner Ben. She knows she's died, because her life flashes before her eyes and she is remembering things about her mother before she was unhappy most of the time. Not only is she remembering things about her self, but it seems she is also seeing into Ben's thoughts and memories as he heals her. She knows she's right, and not crazy, but trying to corner and confront Ben is looking like a more difficult task than she thought.

At home her mum is bi-polar and no longer the person she once was, her dad is an FBI agent and constantly away all the time, which leaves her and her brother Jared. She practically raises him, feeds him and makes sure he gets to school on time. Hell she practically looks after them all. But her dad is on a new case a bit closer to home, one with a series of strange and random deaths. Janelle and her best friend Alex decided to do some investigating their self but Janelle soon finds out that the deaths, and her new mysterious Ben, may be linked in ways she never thought possible. Doubt of her new love interest and the discovery of a clock counting down to something terrible, Janelle knows that no matter what she might find she has to keep on searching for answers. After all she's lost too much already.

If I'm honest, I didn't like Janelle's character, that's not to say she was a bad one, I just did.. feel a spark with her. I didn't really get her relationship with Ben, at times I felt she thought she 'loved him' more out of the fact that he saved her life. There was moments when I felt like it was all one sided. It's strange, with Ben I never doubted his feelings, they were right out there in the open and granted I felt them to be a bit borderline stalkerish sometimes, they were still true. There were only a handful of times I felt anything for Janelle's character, times when it was just impossible not to. So like I said, she wasn't a bad character I just found her annoying at times. As far as sub characters go, I loved Alex, he made me laugh and really seemed like a loyal friend (at times I thought he was secretly in love with Janelle but I've been wrong before) and he was just a character that I warmed to. Ben's best friend Elijah and Reid however I could not. I think that is because they didn't try setting any roots down or connecting with more people, they were just so focused on one thing and even though I know it was a big thing, I also would have liked to see them actually give others the time of day instead of just brushing them of

So much happened in this book and it made it damn near impossible to stay focused. If it was spaced out a little bit more between the series than maybe I would have liked it better. I really liked the idea behind the story, and I also know it was a début so I'm hoping that the others will be better. I didn't hate this book, not really. I just expected more than what I got but that's due to my own stupidly high standards.