Review: Unbreakable (Unraveling #2) by Elizabeth Norris

Publisher: HarperCollins
Published: April 23, 2013
Pages: 496
Source: For Review from HarperCollins Canada
Rating: 4.5 Stars

Four months after Ben disappeared through the portal to his home universe, Janelle believes she’ll never see him again. Her world is still devastated, but life is finally starting to resume some kind of normalcy. Until Interverse Agent Taylor Barclay shows up. Somebody from an alternate universe is running a human trafficking ring, kidnapping people and selling them on different Earths—and Ben is the prime suspect. Now his family has been imprisoned and will be executed if Ben doesn’t turn himself over within five days.
And when Janelle learns that someone she cares about—someone from her own world—has become one of the missing, she knows that she has to help Barclay, regardless of the danger. Now Janelle has five days to track down the real culprit. Five days to locate the missing people before they’re lost forever. Five days to reunite with the boy who stole her heart. But as the clues begin to add up, Janelle realizes that she’s in way over her head—and that she may not have known Ben as well as she thought. Can she uncover the truth before everyone she cares about is killed?

In short: Unbreakable by Elizabeth Norris is a strong and riveting sequel to an intensely thrilling duology.

Unraveling was a fantastically thrilling mystery with a super cool sci-fi twist, so I knew I needed to get my hands on Unbreakable, the sequel to this duology. There was some worry from me that Elizabeth Norris was not going to be able to bring the same level of intense action scenes and involved mystery that she brought in Unraveling, but in the end I needn't have worried at all: Unbreakable was just as exciting and electrifying as Unraveling. Elizabeth Norris has a true talent for crafting weighty and ambitious story lines and she handles them exceedingly well.

Part of what makes Unbreakable so riveting is its breakneck pacing. Like Unraveling, Unbreakable is a chunky book, but you would never know it: super short chapters, near constant action scenes, and a race against a countdown clock ensure that you will fly through this read. I mean, GOOD GRIEF it was kind of insane how non-stop the action was. Unbreakable is the kind of book that left me with my knees hurting from how much I had been tensing them. But what I think I loved even more is that the insane and numerous action scenes were never at the expense of character growth and emotion in Unbreakable, as they are with most action-packed books.

I continue to love Janelle for her independence, level-headedness, and quick thinking mind. But part of me actually feels crappy because I feel so lame in comparison. I mean, because Janelle really is pretty freaking awesome. Her endurance and perseverance in the face of all that she has had to endure, both in Unraveling and in Unbreakable, is pretty remarkable. And of course, I continue to love Ben and I continue to love Janelle and Ben together. SO MUCH FONDNESS! I was rooting for them for the entire series.

If you haven't given Unraveling a try yet, I would absolutely recommend it. As I mentioned, Elizabeth Norris is an ambitious story teller with some great ideas. It's no surprise to me that Unraveling has actually been optioned as a TV show by MTV as I think it would be well suited to such a medium and would be loved by fans of Fringe and The X-Files. I'm sad to see this series end, but maybe having a TV series will help me deal with the loss.

Previously, my review of Unraveling.

Other Reviews:
The Nocturnal Library
Once Upon a Twilight

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