Review: 13 Minutes by Sarah Pinborough

Title: 13 Minutes
Author: Sarah Pinborough
Publisher: Gollancz
Release date: Feb 18th 2016
Synopsis: I was dead for 13 minutes.
I don't remember how I ended up in the icy water but I do know this - it wasn't an accident and I wasn't suicidal.
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. My friends love me, I'm sure of it. But that doesn't mean they didn't try to kill me. Does it?

Review: This was another one where the cover drew me in. Isn't it gorgeous!!! I very much got that 'oooh what is this about' moment looking at it, then  you read the blurb and you want to read it (so props to the copyrighter and designer).

This is probably a good time to make a little confession. I have..I'm not sure issue is the right word, but I always have a little bit of apprehension when adults write books as teenagers, and I always feel that they're trying to 'sound like teenagers of today'. So when I first started this book it took me a chapter or two to kind of get it and then you fall into it don't notice, and I get to the real root of the problem. Is this what I sound like?!! It's born out of fear you see, my distain. But like I said you fall into the story and it becomes your world like your back in school again, and I love that enveloping feeling. Except I really hope no one in my school would want to kill me.

Also as part of a large feature of this book is the school play of The Crucible, and I have a small thing for the crucible, having never seen it  or read the full play. There's an intrigue to it, and this was played out really well in the book, where the play slots into reality and feeds the story and the tension. It a little like (and forgive me for the reference) when you're sat at home and your watching Eastenders or TOWIE and you feel like the plot lines are mirroring your life and you can take something from it. It's that weird blur of reality that both works really well for the pace and tension in the story but makes the book really relatable.

And that's not where reality stopped blurring here because as the book goes on the story starts to unravel in different ways and you're as confused as Rebecca and you get taken on this ride with you. I liked Rebecca's character. It was a mix of naive and wanting but with a lot of determination. She, as much as she wanted to be independent, was a product of the situation around her and I could very much relate to that. I also love a Bitch and Natasha was a swarve bitch!

Although I have other books of Sarah's this was the first one that I've read (sorry!) so now I'm eager for more.  Good characters, good plot, good pace GOOD BOOK! Do check it out.