Thirteen Days to Midnight by Patrick Carman

Title: Thirteen Days to Midnight
Author: Patrick Carman
Publisher: Little, Brown Books for Young Readers
Acquired: Received free for an honest review
Age Group: Young Adult

Grade: 87% or B+
Buy It: Amazon

You are indestructible. These are the words that transfer an astonishing power to Jacob Fielding... and it changes everything. After all, there's something addictive about testing the limits of fear, experiencing the thrill of walking through fire, or saving your friend from a beating in front of the whole school.

Then Ophelia James, the beautiful and daring new girl in town, suggests that they use the power to do good, to save others at risk of death. But with every heroic act, the power grows into the specter of a curse. How to decide who lives and who dies? And why does darkness seem to be chasing them? Jacob only has thirteen days to figure out how to harness this terrifying power... and the answer is chilling: What if he has to kill the one he loves to save her?

My Thoughts::
I put off reading this book for so long. Whenever I would organize my to read pile, it was always in the front. But for some reason I kept skipping around it. I think I forgot what the plot was and just decided to avoid it altogether. I finally tackled it during the readathon, and I am so glad that I did!

I felt like the plot was always evolving in this book. It was fun to see the character's motives and ideas changed as the situation grew more strange and dangerous. Sometimes I felt like they figured out the answers to their problems too easily. Like the solution fell in their lap. Fortunately there were a lot of problems to work through so this happening a few times just sped the book along in most cases without annoying me.

I really liked all of the main characters as well as the others that we were introduced to. The only time when I began to dislike a character it was completely intentional on the author's part and fully explained later. I wasn't able to connect with the characters, but that was okay. The relationships between the characters seemed pretty natural and grew nicely. Though I was a but uneasy with how fast Ophelia and Jacob got together.

I'm not really into superhero books so this was the first one I read in over a year. I think that it took an original take on a tired out idea. I really liked that the origin and complete history was never explained. It only took us as far back as it reasonably could without it getting too far out and unbelievable. I also liked how the power also came with consequences, that were not only interesting, but made sense as well.