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A review by megsbookishtwins
13 Minutes by Sarah Pinborough
2.0
I received this free from the publishers via Netgalley
DNF 30%
Natasha was dead by the side of an ice cold river for 13 minutes. Natasha doesn't remember what happened, and she can't be sure her friends weren't involved. When she starts to distrust her friends, she reconnects to an old friend to discover what happened that night.
I really did try to get into this book, but it just wasn't for me. I usually love mystery-psychological-thrillers, the reason I requested this one in the first place, but this one just couldn't hold my interest at all. One reason was the pacing because it was an incredibly slow placed book, which I usually don't mind in psychological thrillers. However, I believe that Sarah Pinborough failed where other mysteries succeed - she couldn't keep the suspense going. She couldn't keep me guessing or keep me reading. I felt like I had little incentive to continue reading - few developments and not enough reveals. I got 30% in and still felt no closer to any answers to what happened to Natasha as when I were 10% in.
I also had trouble distinguishing between the narratives. What made it worse is that it switched from first person narrative to third person narrative depending on the character whether it was Becca or Natasha. I assumed this was a book focusing on Natasha, whose narrative was first person, but there was an awful lot of focus on Becca, whose narrative was third person. I preferred Natasha as well, so the fact that there was barely anything from her was another reason I DNF'd.
Overall, not one I'd personally recommend.
DNF 30%
Natasha was dead by the side of an ice cold river for 13 minutes. Natasha doesn't remember what happened, and she can't be sure her friends weren't involved. When she starts to distrust her friends, she reconnects to an old friend to discover what happened that night.
I really did try to get into this book, but it just wasn't for me. I usually love mystery-psychological-thrillers, the reason I requested this one in the first place, but this one just couldn't hold my interest at all. One reason was the pacing because it was an incredibly slow placed book, which I usually don't mind in psychological thrillers. However, I believe that Sarah Pinborough failed where other mysteries succeed - she couldn't keep the suspense going. She couldn't keep me guessing or keep me reading. I felt like I had little incentive to continue reading - few developments and not enough reveals. I got 30% in and still felt no closer to any answers to what happened to Natasha as when I were 10% in.
I also had trouble distinguishing between the narratives. What made it worse is that it switched from first person narrative to third person narrative depending on the character whether it was Becca or Natasha. I assumed this was a book focusing on Natasha, whose narrative was first person, but there was an awful lot of focus on Becca, whose narrative was third person. I preferred Natasha as well, so the fact that there was barely anything from her was another reason I DNF'd.
Overall, not one I'd personally recommend.