13 Minutes
Sarah Pinborough
Flatiron Books
Fiction, YA Thriller
Themes: Girl Power, Schools
****
Description
It started on the icy morning when sixteen-year-old Natasha was pulled from the icy river waters by a passerby. Clinically dead for thirteen minutes, she wakes in the hospital - and the first person she asks for is Rebecca, the childhood friend she cast off years ago in favor of thin, blonde, popular Haley and Jenny. Becca is wary, but Tasha is desperate. Something happened between her leaving her house and plunging into the water, something she needs help remembering. Was it some sort of accident, or was someone trying to kill her - someone Tasha thought was a friend? Despite herself, Becca finds herself drawn into the mystery, unearthing a dark web of secrets and lies and betrayals. If Tasha is right, then there may well be an attempted murderer hiding in plain sight... one who might strike again if they get too close to the truth.
Review
13 Minutes starts with the simple premise of a teen girl coming back from the edge of death and builds to a twisting tale where nobody can be trusted and everyone can be a suspect. Tasha's the most popular girl in school, the head of the "Barbies" group of friends whom everyone looks up to (at least, everyone who matters); it seems impossible that someone would want her dead, but somehow she ended up in that river, and it wasn't under her own power. Becca was burned badly when Tasha pivoted to newer friends, but can't forget the old bonds they shared, coming to share Tasha's conviction that something very sinister is going on in the Hive (Becca's term for the waspish social web of their school, a vicious nest full of stingers and venom that happily and hungrily devours its own members). The investigation hits some dead ends and takes some tragic turns as unfolding events reveal a dark and twisted mind behind events going back months or even years, for all that the police seem willing to chalk the whole thing up to ordinary teenage rivalry or bullying. If you look too hard there are a few stretches, but it's a decently taut thriller that actually produces thrills and a little unpredictability as it unfolds.