Review: Unravelling (Unravelling, #1) by Elizabeth Norris

Description:

24 meets the X Files in the biggest teen blockbuster of the summer…

STOP THE COUNTDOWN. SAVE THE WORLD…

Leaving the beach, seventeen-year-old Janelle Tenner is hit head on by a pickup truck.

And killed.

Then Ben Michaels, resident stoner, is leaning over her. And even though it isn’t possible, she knows Ben somehow brought her back to life…

Meanwhile, Janelle’s father, a special agent for the FBI, starts working on a case that seems strangely connected to Ben. Digging in his files, Janelle finds a mysterious device – one that seems to be counting down to something that will happen in 23 days and 10 hours time.

That something? It might just be the end of the world. And if Janelle wants to stop it, she’s going to need to uncover Ben’s secrets – and keep from falling in love with him in the process…

***

Review:

With just a glance at the book's premise, I thought it was gonna be another book on apocalypse and well, I'm kind of tired of apocalypses too which was I was surprised when I found myself wanting to read it.

I found the first half of the book quite slow but maybe that's because I'm not exactly a fan of mystery. The first half mainly consist of Janelle figuring out the weird and freaky stuff that's happening around her, sticking her head into files that were supposed to be kept confidential and possibly swooning over Ben. All these bored the crap out of me. The only perks that kept me going were the characters. Ahem, the secondary characters.

While I found Janelle a likably decent character, I thought the secondary characters (Elijah, Jared, Alex etc.) were more interesting and amusing and I personally liked Elijah. Alex himself was adorkably hilarious in a nerdy way, overall a great best friend to Janelle like how I envisage a best friend would be.

The plot finally got interesting nearing the second half and whoa, that was when it started keeping me at the edge of my seat. Action, plot twists and even depictive gruesome scenes were written it. I honestly didn't see most of the twists that were coming and some of them caught me off guard.

However, one aspect that potentially hindered my liking of Unravelling would be the romance. I, for one, don't like the idea of Ben obsessing over Janelle since like, 10 years old and Janelle seemingly oblivious to it until something big happened and Ben is the one who catches her attention. When first introduced to him, I was a little creeped out by him partly because of his slightly stalkerish behavior and it didn't help that Ben seemed to remember memories of Janelle which she herself had forgotten. How would you find a boy whom you recently just noticed, brings you a grape soda and he's all, "I know you loved grape soda when you were in 6th grade. You always had to have one for lunch then!"? Obviously you'll be creeped out!

Next up, the ending. I guess it's a killer ending where you're supposed to sob over whatever just happened but... I didn't feel anything. Fine, I felt the tiniest twinge of pity but that's probably the only thing I felt. You'll be like, 'Vi, how the hell can you not mourn over that?' and I'll be like, 'Because I'm cold-hearted,' which is somewhat true too. Seriously speaking, I didn't feel for any of the characters which could mean that the author did not craft the characters well enough to sympathize with. On the other hand, maybe it's just me 

because I practically suck at feeling.

Overall Unravelling could have acquired itself 4 stars but Edward Cullen syndrome several issues mentioned above prevented so.

3.5/5 Stars

Violette