Thus, Rebecca’s relationship with Aiden, her boyfriend she is infatuated with but who is actually kind of a deadbeat and a jerk, is sincerely and intensely portrayed, even as Rebecca over the course of the book learns not to rely on his attention for her self-esteem and comes to realise that promises of ‘forever’ can’t always be taken at face value. Pinborough manages the delicate balance of capturing the heightened emotional state of being a teenager without being patronising. This technique immerses the reader in the girls’ perspectives as they unravel the mystery around them.įor this to work, it is crucial that Pinborough understands teenage psychology. The story is told from Rebecca’s point of view, along with entries from Natasha’s journal, records of her visits to the psychiatrist, and various newspaper cuttings.

Natasha and Rebecca are both high school students, and before they realise how high the stakes are, they both have fun living up to the role of detectives, setting elaborate traps to try and draw Hayley and Jenny out, and even playing chess against each other via phone. Reuniting with Rebecca Crisp, an ex-friend she kicked out of her social circle for not being cool enough, she begins to suspect that her current best friends, Hayley and Jenny, could be behind her accident.ġ3 Minutes is as tautly constructed and as tensely paced as the best murder mysteries, and Pinborough has a lot of fun playing with all the associated tropes, from the early morning dog walker who finds Natasha in the river to the various red herrings she throws at the reader. Natasha Howland, the most popular girl in Brackston Community School, is dragged out of the river one morning and revived after being medically dead for thirteen minutes, with no memory of how she got there. In doing so, she has created a book that is both an original and self-aware YA thriller and a reflection on the masks we wear at school to hide our fears and insecurities, and how these shape our lives well into adulthood. In 13 Minutes, Sarah Pinborough relocates the Whodunnit thriller to the modern day high school. All that matters is that you sound believable.” Whether you look good or not is irrelevant.

The point should be to distract from the truth.

That, however, should never be the point. “People so often try and make themselves look good when they lie.

13 Minutes by Sarah Pinborough