Review: Unravelling by Elizabeth Norris

Unravelling by Elizabeth Norris

 

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…

I was extremely excited to read this book as I had heard so many great things but I was a little bit disappointed with it. Lets move on to the review!

The cover: I like the cover, the mysteriousness of it and the sleek white background it has, but it doesn't blow me away. If I saw the cover in a shop and didn't know anything about the story I probably wouldn't pick it up. However, the tag line 'stop the countdown, save the world' is very eye catching and lets be honest, it sounds awesome!

The characters: There's quite a lot of characters in this book but I feel like I got to know each one and were able to distinguish each character by their personality. Janelle was a very likeable character and I always agreed with every decision she made, which is quite rare for me. I loved the relationship Janelle had with her father, brother and her best friend, the relationships felt very real which did make certain aspects of the story very heartbreaking! (I'm not going to say anything more, I don't want to spoil it!). The love interested, Ben, was also very good, he was sweet and I did become attached to him but I didn't find myself rooting for them until the very end of the book.

The setting: I think the setting was one of my favourite aspects to unravelling, I loved the beach, the motorcycle shop and I loved the fact that Janelle's house was adjacent to her best friend's house (I mean, who doesn't want to live next door to their best friend?!) but I also loved the sci-fi element to the setting. Again, I wont go that much into the sci-fi element as I don't want to spoil it for you guys!

The overall story: I have to say, this book was extremely unpredictable which is very rare for me to think, I usually am able to guess the ending but Unravelling had me guessing right until the end! I don't read a lot of sci-fi so I found this book to be very unique and I did find it really interesting, I also liked the fact that the romance aspect of the book blended really well with the sci-fi aspect of it! However, a lot of the things that happened during the book did feel very far fetched, I doubt that an FBI agent would just leave his top secret files out in the open for his daughter to read! Also, I felt like the beginning and the middle of the book was basically Janelle coming up with theories about what was happening and then the end was like 'NOPE YOU WERE WRONG, THIS WAS HAPPENING AND NOW EVERYTHING IS DIFFERENT, THE END!' The ending was good and it was very creative but I felt like I didn't get to find out more about what was going on.

Unravelling is a very face paced, creative and suspenseful sci-fi read that will leave you guessing until the very end. However, because of the hype surrounding this book and the high expectations I had when going into it, I was a little bit disappointed. Overall I give Unravelling 3.5 out of 5 stars, I liked it but it didn't blow me away.

 - Brodi