Personal Rating: 4 Stars Goodreads Rating at time of review: 3.77 Stars Content Rating: PG-13 (for language) Chronic overachiever Prudence Barnett is always quick to cast judgment on the lazy, rude, and arrogant residents of her coastal town. Her dreams of karmic justice are fulfilled when, after a night out with her friends, she wakes up with the sudden ability to cast instant karma on those around her. Pru giddily makes use of the power, punishing everyone from public vandals to mean gossips, but there is one person on whom her powers consistently backfire: Quint Erickson, her slacker of a lab partner. Quint is annoyingly cute and impressively noble, especially when it comes to his work with the rescue center for local sea animals. When Pru resigns herself to working at the rescue center for extra credit, she begins to uncover truths about baby otters, environmental upheaval, and romantic crossed signals—not necessarily in that order. Her newfound karmic insights reveal how thin the line is between virtue and vanity, generosity and greed, love and hate . . . and fate. (goodreads.com) If you have read my reviews for very long, you are probably aware that Marissa Meyer is one of my favorite authors of all time. If you were not aware of that fact, just know that I am automatically suspicious of anyone who dislikes the Lunar Chronicles. Librarian diplomacy forces me to say that you are free to like what you like and dislike what you dislike, but I don’t know if we can ever really be friends if you actively dislike the Lunar Chronicles. Moving on. Since Marissa Meyer is one of my favorite authors, you may have two questions for me. 1. Corrie, why the heck did it take you so long to read this book that was released two years ago? 2. Corrie, why are you even bothering to review this since it’s a Marissa Meyer book and you obviously love it? To answer question one: Well, you know what, the past two years have been just a smidge wack-a-doodle and my reading habits, like everything else, have changed a bit. Also, even though I love this author, I don’t typically read contemporary romance, which may have somewhat deterred me when looking at this book. To answer question two: Hold your horses antsy pants, I promise this review is going to be more than me just gushing over a book I liked… though I can’t promise that there won’t be any fangirling at all. This is a Marissa Meyer book we’re talking about. When I started reading this book I was actually extremely disappointed. Shocking the entire world, including myself, I was not immediately drawn in. I think part of the problem was that I started reading in the winter and this is very much a summer book. The other major problem was that I could not stand the main character, Prudence. *dramatic gasp here* She is still probably my least favorite Marissa Meyer MC, but I did like her better by the end of the book. However, after several attempts at reading the first few chapters and not getting into it when I read this book in the winter. I decided to peace out and try again in the summertime. When I returned to Instant Karma in the warm opening days of this summer, I found it much more to my liking. There are some books that can be read no matter the weather, but I’ve found that with summer books, for me, it has to be summer when I’m reading them (otherwise I get extra sad when I look out the window and see Midwest winter slapping me in the face). I was still constantly annoyed with Prudence even if I was enjoying the book more. Her self-righteousness was so frustrating. I know she was supposed to be like that, because that was part of her character development arc, but goodness gracious she was irritating at the beginning. She was still sort of annoying at the end of the story, but it felt more manageable as a reader and she definitely had more redeeming qualities. Plus, it was nice that she wasn’t just a copy and paste of Meyer’s other characters, as some authors tend to do. Once I hit chapter 16 (they’re fairly short chapters) I was fully sucked into the book. I needed to know what was going to happen to the marine animal rescue center and what business tactics Prudence would try to save all of the adorable sea lions. Also, the romance in this book was so cute it made me want to scream for joy. Seriously though, is it any wonder I don’t want to get married when my expectations for relationships come from Marissa Meyer books? She has set the bar too high. No mortal man can compare. No romantic gestures will ever live up to the sweetness of fictional ones. I literally hugged the book when… well I can’t say what happened exactly because it’s a spoiler, but just know that it involved a Beatles song and it was freaking adorable. It was also semi-educational! Lots of interesting things about marine animals! And, though I am not a fan of the ocean, it did kind of make me want to go snorkeling. Not enough to actually do it, but the book made it sound nice. There was also a good message about environmental awareness which I appreciated. I’m a little disappointed that I live in a landlocked state and can’t organize a beach cleanup event. Maybe a river bank clean up event? Or maybe I’ll just keep picking up trash on my walk to work. It doesn’t really have the same flare, but it’ll have to do. Like most contemporary romances, there wasn’t really any intense sort of plot beyond saving the rescue center, but it was still a fun fluffy read. Very different from Marissa Meyer’s other books which all have intense, high stakes plotlines. This book featured just a dash of magic. Hardly enough to really be considered magic, but it was still there. Prudence is able to apply karma to people she sees doing wrong things. For instance, she sees a toddler smash someone else’s sandcastle and then THE TODDLER IS OBLITERATED BY COSMIC FORCES WHEN A HORRIFYING… beachball… FLIES FROM THE HEAVENS AND… bops him in the face. The “instant karma” that she deals out does create a few dilemmas and a bit of excitement, but you hardly even notice that she has the ability while reading. I almost forgot to mention it in this review, honestly. A fun plot device, but not actually a big part of the emotion of the story. While I started off disappointed and alarmed that I might not like a book written by one of the queens of YA writing, I ended up in a fit of happy giggles. My cat truly must think I am delusional when she sees me stare at paper for hours on end, laughing and yelling for no apparent reason. Bless that sweet kitty for putting up with me. If you are in the mood for a summer romance featuring adorable sea lions (definitely look at pictures of sea lions while reading this book) and just a pinch of magic, then this may be the book for you! It definitely got me out of my reading slump so expect more reviews soonish! Now, you must excuse me because I’m off to drool over the fact that Marissa Meyer has another book coming out this year (it’s called Cursed and it’s the sequel to Gilded, which I will be reading later this year, maybe even this summer yet, we’ll see). Thanks for reading! GIFs from giphy.com
Cover from goodreads.com
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