A review by vacantbones
13 Minutes by Sarah Pinborough

4.0

Be my best friend forever.

Confession: YA thrillers featuring catty mean girls are my guilty pleasure. Don't get me wrong, they're not all created equal. And I genuinely despise when people act like this IRL. In a book, though? So good. I mean, so bad, but soooo good.

13 Minutes is, according to the jacket flap, about Natasha, suspicious of her two best friends after a freak accident that nearly leaves her dead, and Becca, the discarded ex-best friend she turns to for help. But this story goes so much further than just the simple questions being asked here: how did Natasha end up in the river, and why are her friends acting so strange? I've probably read several hundred YA mysteries in the last fifteen years or so, but this one still managed to catch me off-guard and stun me with its revelations.

Excellent writing, intriguing format and use of multiple POVs, and a wicked story. I would've liked if the book acknowledged that Aiden perhaps shouldn't have been entirely shocked that a 16 year-old girl would act jealous and immature in the context of a relationship with a 19 year-old, but that's okay. My inner teenage reader really enjoyed this read!